I recently came up with a craving I couldn't quite ignore. Remember back in, oh, 1980-something, there was a Peanut Butter Twix in the USA? Oh yeah. The Twix we knew and loved, only the caramel had been replaced with PB....so good. I used to get them all the time at the summer camp snack kiosk, one of my fondest food memories from childhood.

So, I googled "peanut butter Twix" on the night of this massive, unshakable craving and much to my excitement, I found out that the PB Twix had made a comeback! Oh joy and happiness, I even found somewhere I could order a box on eBay (which was necessary, since I live in Australia now and PB Twix are only found in the States. What this country's aversion to peanut butter is, I will never understand). For no more than it would have cost me to buy 24 regular Twix bars in my local Aussie shopping center, I could import from the USA 24 of the much longed-for PB Twix! And order I did.

My friendly eBay seller did mention in his item description that PB Twix now have chocolate cookie instead of the butter cookie I had fallen in love with as a girl. I thought to myself that surely Mars, Inc. must know what they are doing changing the flavor and went ahead and bought them. After all, chocolate and peanut butter are a match made in heaven, right? Of course!

What my eBay seller failed to tell me was that modern-day PB Twixes actually taste more like a stale, cremeless Oreo cookie, topped with a layer of I Can't Believe It's Not Peanut Butter, and a coating of smooth, chocolate-flavored Bonne Bell Lipsmacker, than the delectable delight I remembered from Bible camp days!

Oh, what bitter disappointment. But, come to think of it, this isn't the first time I've had reason to feel this way. You see, desperate people have ways of getting the things they desperately need. When I am in need of an American candy fix, I know where to get one. Over the past few years, though, I have noticed that American candy just isn't living up to my memories of it. The chocolate has become waxier, greasier, less like real chocolate. The peanut butter has become just a shadow of it's former self -- as if it is now just a clone of a clone of a clone (ala Homer Simpson, if anyone recalls that episode...or that movie, Multiplicity, with Michael Keaton) . It retains enough of its texture and flavor that perhaps those who eat this stuff frequently haven't even noticed the difference. But I do, and I feel, when eating one of these candy bars, as if I might be on an alternate universe somewhere eating an evil parallel version of the PB Twix I so fondly remember.

It's not just candy, either, that is taking a turn for the worse. Why does it seem that so much of the real food that I know you all once ate is being replaced with these [...prepackaged, washed-out salads; precooked, cut, seasoned, (chemically) marinated meats; casseroles made with two cans of (fill in the blank), a can of cream of (fill in the blank) soup, some instant (fill in the blank) and diced process American cheese product...] well, lets just call them food alternatives? What exactly is happening to the food over there, guys? Are you noticing it too?

For what it's worth, I'm not the only one who feels this way. My sister posted something on a similar topic a few months ago, and she should know. She recently moved from Australia, where food is still food (for the most part) and junk food is still just a treat (rather than, say, breakfast, as in Poptarts), back to the USA. I daresay it must have been pretty noticeable. [You can read that post here.]

Now, I don't pretend to know what y'all should do about this situation, if anything. What do you do? Does anyone think the decline in food quality has anything to do with the increase in health problems? Or am I just nuts? Open to and interested in conversation on this topic. :-)