Malt-O-Meal Analysis

Words: 1346
Pages: 6

Everything I know about food, I’ve learned from my parents. Today, my family is well off, but it wasn’t always that way. When I was young, we didn’t eat out often, and when we did, I was told to order one of the cheaper items on the menu. I can also recall one instance of my father being quite upset over the supermarket changing the regular price of a brand of yogurt from forty to fifty-three cents. My parents, when it comes to spending money on food, have always been frugal. It was never Lucky Charms; it was always Malt-O-Meal. It was never Hamburger Helper; it was always Panburger Partner. Whenever they could buy a cheaper version of a product, they did. This philosophy has stayed with me even as our fortunes improved. I still order the cheapest …show more content…
If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that one can tell a lot about a person by what they buy. When I see someone buying tons of organic produce, I get a glimpse of their priorities when buy food, and also that they’re likely of a higher socioeconomic status. When I see someone buying filet mignon and expensive wine, I know that they put a lot of importance into enjoying the finer things in life. When I see someone buying one hundred packs of ramen noodles, I know that they’re probably an impoverished college student that happens to be at least 17% sodium. When I see someone buying everything that happened to be on sale, regardless of its nutritional content, I know that they’re like me. Working in a grocery store, I know a lot about the vast variety of food available to us. I have some familiarity with where the food comes from. After all, I see people coming in with shipments of food to the store’s back room every day. I receive a break of between 20-30 minutes every shift. During this time, I eat something that I bought within the confines of the store. Despite knowing about the vast variety of food available to me, I always get a box of swiss rolls, a bag of chips, or a container of donettes. These items, while unhealthy, are cheap and also delicious. They’re also convenient because I don’t need to cook them, which is good since I only have a short amount of time. …show more content…
The refrigerator and pantry were never empty, and I had so much food to choose from. Contributing to this abundance of food was the fact that my mother worked for Kraft. Whenever there were any damaged products in a warehouse, she was able to obtain any number of those products free of charge. This led to my house being filled with a large number of rather unhealthy snacking options, including the always present Oreos and Chips-Ahoy. It became rather common for me to eat half of a family-sized package of Oreos in a single sitting after school, despite the fact that I certainly didn’t constitute half of a family. I never put too much thought into what I ate. I was blessed to have a very strong metabolism that enabled me to continue this diet without gaining much weight, and I continued this diet for years, relegating the concerns of good health to the dustiest corners of my mind. For the most part, it came down to two simple questions: ‘Is it available?’, and ‘does it taste good?’. This applied to ice cream as well. Ice cream has always been my favorite food. It combines the sweetness of chocolate and candy with the creaminess of dairy. Additionally, when it’s on sale, it’s actually not that expensive. Each day, without question, I consumed about one quart of ice cream. I knew that the nutrition table of a half-gallon container specified that there were nine servings, but I could not