Ewwww! One of the door-to-door litterers hung a bag with two minipackages of Quaker cereals on my front gate. I don’t eat processed junk cereals, and so was about to throw them out when I thought…wait! Maybe this is something I could eat between classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
There’s no decent food on campus (decent by my lights, anyway—I don’t eat junk food, and that’s about all that’s sold in the student union, except for a few pathetic attempts at salads). The stretch from 7:00 a.m., when I have breakfast, to 3:30 or 4:00, when I get home, is a long one, and I get awfully hungry. So hungry that the instant I get into the house I fix a big dinner and then overeat. The overeating at mealtime is what keeps the weight on, I suspect.
So, I go to look at the ingredients in the minipackage of Quaker Oatmeal Squares:
whole oat flour, whole wheat flour, brown sugar, sugar, maltodextrin, malted barley extract, molasses, salt, and then a list of the same ingredients that appear in a bottle of multivitamins.
Maltodextrin is a form of sugar. Malted barley extract is a type of sweetener which also contains a form of sugar.
Sooo…what we have in this little box is some ground oats and wheat (very cheap), five doses of sugar(!), and some spray-on vitamins. Oatmeal Squares, sold as “heart-healthy” and so by implication good for you, is largely, if not mostly, sugar.
Yuck! Why do people put stuff like this in their mouth?
Well, the answer is probably that they think it’s good for them (“2 grams of soluble fiber from oatmeal daily in a diet low in saturated fat and cholesteral may reduce the risk of heart disease,” it says here). And they probably think it’s inexpensive food.
What does this stuff cost? At the Safeway, with the Red Card membership discount: about $2.50 for 12 ounces. That’s twenty-one cents an ounce, which at first glance seems pretty cheap. But really. It’s an awful lot for a vitamin pill sprinkled over some heavily sugared grain.
You’d do a whole lot better to buy a box of real, actual oats. Takes about five minutes to cook them, and when you pour the stuff in your bowl, you get the whole three ounces (or more)…not the one ounce that resides in a single serving of Oatmeal Squares. If you like your cereal sugared up, at least you know how much sugar (or honey, or maple syrup) you’re putting over the stuff.
Is there any question why Americans are overweight?
Processed cereals are about the worst stuff you can feed your kids, as well! Cap’ Crunch? Terrible stuff! And cokes and chips are why this country is getting so fat! And all the junk food we buy is also one reason so many of us are broke.
Mostly we eat what we eat for the sake of convenience and an insatiable desire for salt, sugar, and fat!
If you’re the kind who gives in to your pallet, you’re probably also the type who spends too much, as well. If you’re prone to bad habits, you’re prone to all of them!
I forget where but I read the other day about the entire process involved in getting people to eat high caloric snack, cereal, frozen, etc foods. Every single little thing is analyzed from beginning to end by neuro scientists, behavioral scientists and PhD’s who study human behavior. From the taste, texture, feel and sight of a food right down to the packaging in which it’s sold. I was fascinated and, suddenly, far better informed. “Bet you can’t eat just one” is NO accident.
I also had one of those packages containing the oatmeal squares left on my door….. I was in two minds regarding whether we should eat it because I honestly didn’t know where it came from!
For all the hoopla about rising food prices, a breakfast of oatmeal every day would cost about a dollar or two a month–leaving some money for raisins and brown sugar.
@ tmgbooks, Quest, frugalscholar: Yup. And oatmeal really is good for you. So is quinoa and a new-to-me grain just discovered at Costco, fallo. Fallo is a barley-like wheat grain — cooks up to resemble barley and is extremely delicious.
Quinoa is almost $4/lb and farro–last I saw–is $11. Don’t know if either is worth the cost (to me).
@ frugalscholar: The quinoa I’ve picked up at Costco in lifetime supplies seems to go quite a long way. One package lasts me two or three months. But then I’m must one person eating away at it.
The farro, I’m not so sure. The package contains less of the product. One cup does cook up into three cups. However, I liked it so much I ate a lot of it, and so of that three cups only about enough remains for just one meal, as a side. I suspect the farro does come under the heading of a luxury food; it’s something I’d prepare like rice as a side dish. You could extend it by combining with rice and, if you were really feeling extravagant, adding a little wild rice.
Healthy Junk Food… what a delicious oxymoron. Let’s not forget either about the GMO roundup-ready grains that were used to make this tasty treat.