Store food samples are often deceptive and unhealthy. Avoid these samples if you want to maintain a healthy diet, especially if you’re a vegan.
Food samples are a mainstay at specialty grocery and warehouse club stores. Here’s the problem. Food samples often contain added ingredients such as butter, sugar, and salty seasonings. How can you accurately test a product that has added “taste good” ingredients? You can’t.
Specialty Grocery Stores
Some special grocery stores (TJs) often pair two or more food samples together and add additional ingredients! One day, organic baked beans were being offered, which interested me. And beef hot dogs, which did not interest me. I didn’t notice the hot dog slices in the tiny paper cups, so I grabbed one and shot it in my mouth. Yuck! “Hot dogs are garbage!” I thought. This is true even if you’re a meat eater. 🙁
Warehouse Club Stores
If you’re a warehouse club shopper, you know that many product samples are available. This is particularly true on weekends and before food-centered holidays.
One of these stores (Cc) offered a multi- “whole grain” bread sample. Once I got closer, I saw that the demonstrator was loading it with butter. I know that for most people, that makes sense. But you cannot evaluate the taste and quality of bread with butter or anything else piled on it. For vegans like me who don’t use butter and have come to appreciate food like bread without it, it’s crazy!
This one I love since I’m a superfood smoothie aficionado. A famous but expensive and ugly (IMO) blender is often demonstrated. The demonstrator was barking out the “super healthy” ingredients he was putting in. Once he poured the finished smoothie into tiny cups, I enthusiastically grabbed one and took a big sip. I was jolted with a huge sugar rush. I asked what it was sweetened with, and he proudly said, “Agave!” I looked around and noticed dozens of empty and full bottles of it on his side table. He must have put an entire bottle in the blender. Really! It was that sweet.
Most health experts agree that Agave is not a healthy alternative to cane sugar. Agave contains more fructose than any sweetener. That’s poison to your body.
It’s hard to resist the temptation to grab fragrant store food samples. However, if I enter the store with the mindset of ignoring them and successfully do so, I feel like I add a bit of mental muscle while avoiding putting garbage into my body.
To your health and fitness,