Today’s generation has very different habits when it comes to eating. They prefer to either eat a precooked meal, order something off of Uber Eats or Seamless, or go to a fancy restaurant or Starbucks and blow the last bit of money they have left after loan payments and rent. Many of the classic casual restaurants, such as TGI Friday’s and Applebee’s, are becoming strangely devoid of the presence of millennials, as they do their best to avoid these locations.
Market Studies reports that sales at casual dining restaurants have been in serious decline in the past few years. While many of these brands and establishments are doing their best to woo millennials back into their restaurants, their efforts have largely been unsuccessful. It seems that there’s something unique about the millennial mind, where the more you try to appeal to them – the less they want to participate.
Bye Bye Regular Milk
When our parents went to the grocery store to buy milk, they bought classic cow milk. The market was practically limited to the options of either nonfat, whole or two percent milk, with only a tiny fringe of alternative products. Nowadays, any food store you walk into will contain everything from almond milk to soy milk and just about every other type of vegan milk you can think of.
Millennials today are becoming increasingly vegan, or at least opting to avoid dairy and go for more natural forms of milk. While this transition has been linked to higher levels of estrogen, it’s clear that the trend is only going to continue in the coming years. Milk sales are already down almost 50% since the ‘70s, and meat is also seeing a massive decline in the past decade, as soy products become more and more popular.
Millennials Aren’t Into Cruises, Theme Parks, and Golf Courses
One of the most fun things you could do back in the ‘80s and ‘90s was take your friends or family (or both) on an extravagant trip to the Caribbean. Other popular fun activities included a great game of golf, or a visit to your local theme park or zoo. With today’s instant entertainment, sensational news cycles, higher work hours and lack of marriages, it’s no wonder that millennials are ditching the whole “outside” activities thing almost entirely.
While many Instagram influencers use cruises and trips as a way to appear cool and make their fans think they’re happy people, most of their followers would be hard-pressed to find any reason to leave their homes in general. Today’s generation is just much less fond of traveling and going on adventures, which might be why fantasy films are on the rise, while adventure films are practically gone.
They Donate a Lot Less Money to Churches
This generation is a lot more atheistic, and a lot less charitable when it comes to donations. Most of today’s social fabric has been relegated to the United States government, with public services such as Food Stamps and Medicare taking the lead instead of the community or the church.
Millennials also don’t really know their neighbors anymore, which is largely due to the fact that they move every other year or so. This causes them to be a lot more focused on spending money on themselves and is in turn a leading factor of the record loneliness rates among young people today.
Millennials Hate Beef
Since the decline of milk began, beef sales started to decline right along with it. Millennials are much less fond today of meat and dairy products, especially red meats. Many young people today are ditching meat in general, and those who don’t, prefer to stick with more “safe” meats that don’t evoke a strong moral response, such as fish.
Beef is also a bit more on the pricey side, which makes it a lot less desirable for today’s vegan and broke millennials. Even if you put moral issues aside, the fact that your average millennial owes tens of thousands of dollars for his government-backed student loan is a great reason to stay on the frugal side.