It’s strange for this to come up the same week I have something approximating stomach flu. (Hey Wally: You said you weren’t contagious anymore? You were wrong.) But someone on Facebook mentioned …

Crystal Pepsi lasted a year before joining Like Cola, New Coke and various other products in the culinary graveyard. Apparently despite the beliefs of Pepsico’s product development people, the world was not interested in a drink that looked like Pepsi’s Sierra Mist (which replaced Slice) but tasted sort of like Pepsi.

Two categories of these foods come to mind — foods that now don’t taste the same because of health-related “improvements,” and foods discontinued because nobody bought them. (This is not a blog about Regrettable Foods. That’s a subject for another time.)

The former category includes, well, lots of things you can buy in the store. We are drinkers of Throwback Pepsi because soda made with sugar tastes better than soda made with corn syrup. The late Purity Bakery in Lancaster made exceptional doughnuts when I got there in 1988 because they fried with lard. The new owner replaced the lard with vegetable oil, and the results were not the same. (The fact I gained 15 pounds in three months in Lancaster in the Lard Era is, I’m sure, coincidence.)

A related example is McDonald’s food, which for some reason isn’t filling to me anymore. Quarter Pounders still have a quarter-pound of beef before cooking, right?

(Back when Mrs. Presteblog and I were in those happy child-free years, we would meet for lunch at McDonald’s when Fox Cities McDonalds had a promotion in which the second Quarter Pounder cost the same as the previous day’s high temperature — free on days at or below zero. During one cold snap, we had lunch there a lot. The fact I gained 20 pounds in five years in Appleton is, I’m sure, coincidence.)

Certain McDonald’s offerings also make the list of foods that have gone to the Great Restaurant in the Sky. In the late ’80s McDonald’s rolled out the McDLT, which …

(Which was more of a shock: (1) Jason Alexander “singing,” or (2) Jason Alexander with hair?)

Unfortunately, the enviroweenies killed the McDLT due to the double-size Styrofoam packaging. Thereafter McDonald’s resolved to use only paper. (Which is more common in landfills: Styrofoam or paper? The latter.)

The McDLT was replaced by the Lean Deluxe …

… which used seaweed to make it “91% Fat Free.” Consumers voted with their feet, or more accurately their mouths.

It shouldn’t shock you that several websites have lists (because everyone writes lists these days), even an entire website, of gone-but-not-forgotten foods, such as …

McDonald’s FRIED Apple Pies

In 1992, some McFool decided these should be baked instead of fried, hence a companywide transition. But wait: Certain oddball Mickey D’s locations at Wal-Mart stores, airports, and various overseas branches still have them. Since these holy spots are too cramped to fit ovens, they can’t sell the baked doosies! Only the fried, cinnamon-dusted nostalgia.

Ecto Cooler

Was it the ectoplasmy shade of green or Slimer’s possessed face that make us miss these juice boxes so? The Ecto Cooler went so well with peanut butter sandwiches, barbecued chicken, chocolate cake, Chinese food, anything. Lasting for two decades, Minute Maid finally yanked them in 2001, replacing them with some lame Shoutin’ Orange Tangergreen flavor.

Crispy M&Ms

Met its tragic, untimely death in the United States in 2005.

Pepsi Blue

Discontinued in the US and Canada in 2004.

In the ’70s Pepsi also made …

 Oreo O’s

The most delicious cereal of all time met its end in 2007. Except in South Korea!

Orbitz

This ground breaking soft drink/floating dots hybrid met its end in 1997. Who cares if it tasted bad, it looked so DAMN COOL.

(Under no circumstances am I drinking anything that comes with floating stuff in the bottle.)

 Gatorade Gum

Gatorade was the first to learn that drinks and gum don’t mix so well in the late 90’s.

Heinz EZ Squirt

There is something just so damn awesome about colorful condiments. Or maybe just so damn gross. Either way, barf ketchup was discontinued in 2006.

(We somehow got a bottle of green and a bottle of purple ketchup. They tasted like ketchup, but the visual was a bit strange.)

Perhaps because I’ve never been a big junk food eater (though I managed to gain 80 pounds in the years since high school graduation nonetheless), I missed most of these foods. I didn’t eat any kind of pie until I ate my stepgrandmother’s Dutch apple pie with ice cream. Since I like Nestle Crunch bars, I probably would have liked Crunchy M&Ms, but I don’t think my life is worse off as a result of their death. I preferred my mother’s chocolate chip cookies to store-bought cookies, including Oreos. (However, I later discovered that crushed Oreos, ice cream and Kahlua mixed together is really good.)

You’ll notice, by the way, that most of the foods on these lists are sodas, snack foods, or breakfast cereals. That suggests most were purchased for use by the younger-than-adult set.

One breakfast cereal that is around no longer is …

… Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks. I wasn’t hooked on them, but they were on a cereal rotation that included Sugar Corn Pops and Wheaties. (Sadly, Kellogg’s is discontinuing Corn Pops too.) I may have eaten them first as the result of our touring the Kellogg’s factory in Battle Creek, Mich. Kellogg’s doesn’t do tours anymore either.

Jell-O used to sell Jell-O 1-2-3, which separated into three layers. Apparently, though, you can do it yourself.

In my pre-Mrs. Presteblog days, one day while shopping I discovered a microwave Chinese sweet-and-sour chicken dinner for which you purchased your own chicken and rice. I don’t remember who made it, but if I remember correctly it involved three steps — cutting up the chicken, putting some sort of powder seasoning on it and microwaving it, and then dumping that into a pouch with the sweet-and-sour part (pineapples, maraschino cherries, etc., and sauce) and microwaving that. It tasted good, and it was more accessible than the nearest Chinese restaurant, 35 minutes to the south in Dubuque. There may have been a couple of other flavors, but whatever they were, they’re all gone now.

Speaking of chicken, there was a product Ragú made called Chicken Tonight, which involved cutting up and frying chicken, adding the sauce in a jar, and then putting it on top of your favorite rice. Chicken Tonight came with its own earworm commercial:

I didn’t realize until viewing that commercial that Chicken Tonight offered eight flavors. We concentrated on Country French Chicken, with a cream-like sauce, and a similar sauce that I think had mushrooms in it.

Chicken Tonight is apparently still available in some countries, just not this one. And we’ve been unsuccessful in figuring out how to duplicate it. (There is at least one recipe, but this is entirely beside the point of Chicken Tonight, to have a fast meal.)

Most of the gone-but-not-forgotten foods are gone because they didn’t sell enough. Tastes change. (Fortunately, in the case of Urkel-Os and Orbitz.)

Breaking food news: Hostess, which brought the world Twinkies and Ho-Hos (plus Wonder Bread, which only meets the most general definition of “bread”), is closing. Head to the stores as soon as you can; we know that Twinkies last forever.