I ate a lot of hamber helper growing up. Often with weird meat we would get from food pantries. Like bison. Emu. And my dad would hunt deer some times or a relative would so we would eat it with ground venison. Which apparently is considered gourmet meat but I really do not like it. It always tastes like blood to me.

Anyway, when I was lucky enough to get it with ground beef, I recall actually loving it.

As an adult I haven't really eaten it so I went and bought a box a while back.

I think the cheeseburger kind.

Jesus. It's so gross and bland. Like salted cardboard. It also only had like 3/4 of a cup of dried noodles in it.

I remember a box of it feeding all 3 of us kids easily. With leftovers. There is very little yield after it cooks now. Shrink-flation.

Now I will say the box casseroles that Aldi sells are decent.

I like the orzo cheese broccoli one and the hamber one , which I cook with peppers. It has a strong cilantro flavor.

But the Hamber Helper brand ones are just so gross. I don't know if the flavor has changed or maybe they were always that bad.

I swear so much food I thought was good as a kid literally just tastes like salted cardboard. Tostitos "pizzas". Pizza rolls, McDonald's food.

I'm pretty sure they have stopped putting seasoning on a lot of food to cut costs.