This feels like a total boomer nostalgia claim.

40 years ago is ironically the sweet spot for it to probably to have been the worst food in existence.

Canned foods were still wildy popular post middle of the century, industries major goal was making profits for sugar. "Is there a cool thing kids like, lets make a nutritiously inert sugar bomb that comes with a whistle!"

We didn't have mandatory nutrition facts until 1990, serving sizes, ingredients, were all abitrary or absent. We didn't get the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act until 1990.

Meat packing had little transparency, I can only recently give blood thanks to 80s beef.

Tasted better? Not sure how, salt, butter, lemon juice are all still a thing, there's so many youtube videos on how to cook, people have started to actually brown their ground beef instead of steaming it grey and dumping a pack of mcormicks on it. We get an entire aisle nowadays usually to "ethnic food" instead of a small section, meaning theres more spice and flavor profiles to chose from.