Variety *used to be* the spice of life

Are you a greasy hamburger in a world full of tasteless vegetables? Is your sweet tooth falling prey to the new international obsession with counting...carbs, fat grams, calories, steps, tastebuds, etc.? Do you just feel like the world is becoming one big uniform restaurant? Well I do.

Understanding that yes, I am a picky eater, there comes a point when the world is just being cruel for the sake of capturing market share. We just got back from McDonald's where we were informed that the chain has stopped selling chocolate soft-serve ice cream, and from now on, it will only sell vanilla soft serve. And another one bites the dust.

Since I've stopped eating McDonald's food about 3 years ago, the only reason I had to go there any more was for the chocolate soft-serve. And it was my haven, my little chocolate soft-serve haven. Dairy Queen only sells vanilla, and the first time I ordered a "chocolate cone" there, I was handed a vanilla cone dipped in a frozen chocolate coating. Bleh. If I wanted that, I'd just have a Revel or a Klondike bar. Baskin Robbins only does regular ice cream. And don't even talk to me about Frozen Yogurt. Not only does it taste gross, but it's not even ice cream. So with McDonald's killing off the chocolate, I'm left without the yummy goodness of soft-serve ice cream.

And if you think I'm overreacting or something, a short history lesson might help. I'm always finding foods on menus that I love, only to have those menu items yanked, leaving me cold.

• The Olive Garden - used to have a dessert called Strawberry Limone, which was a lemon cream cake with strawberries and raspberry sauce. They got rid of it, and I was sad. They rectified the situation by adding a Lemon Cream cake a few months later, and I always order it with the raspberry sauce. No strawberries, but still the essence is preserved
• The Creperie - a French provincial cuisine restaurant here in Edmonton, it used to have a Linguini Tomato Basil dish that I always ordered, mostly because the other menu choices were fish/seafood or contained ingredients that I am allergic to. They killed the Linguini Tomato Basil dish and replaced it with a pasta dish in a sauce containing mushrooms, which I'm allergic to. So now there's nothing there for me.
• Dairy Queen - used to sell reese's pieces blizzards, but they pulled that flavour last year. An idiot child behind the counter offered me a reese peanut butter cup blizzard and I was left wondering just how the two tastes are remotely similar enough to satisfy my palate
• Chef Boyardee - when I was a kid, they sold this product, 'Roller Coaster' which was their lasagne noodles in a tangier sauce with mini meatballs. Gone.

Okay, I get that the trends are swinging impossibly fast towards healthier menu choices for consumers, but why the hell is it that these places always choose the one bloody item on their menus that 99/100 times are the only ones that I'll eat. Stupid bums.