random food thought

[ratcreature]

I sometimes wonder just how sweet people seem to tolerate their food. Don't get me wrong, I like sugary things a lot (no matter that refined sugar is not good for you), but a lot of sweet industrial food is just too extreme for me, despite my pronounced sweet tooth.

For example I really like crunchy chocolate "muesli" (I'm using quotes because I don't think it truly falls within the spirit of muesli when the rolled oats are roasted into crunchy deliciousness with sugar and the only other (possible) cereals in it are some kind of popped chocolate thingies, and also it has chocolate pieces...however it is sold under that label); the rolled oats don't get as soggy in the clusters and it has chocolate in it, so I find it tasty. However the cheap kind I buy(*) is entirely too sweet to eat directly. So to have chocolate muesli for breakfast I always mix one part of that with one part plain rolled oats and one part plain popped amaranth, both unsweetened, and then I arrive at a still very sweet mix. So it works out, but I really wonder whether anyone eats it undiluted.

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(*) For comparison, it costs less than half per 750g box (€1.79) than my plain rat food mix, which also comes in that bag size and cost nearly €4 (though I mostly buy it in the larger 2.5kg bags that are a bit cheaper per kg, but still cost much more per unit than said chocolate muesli), so this strikes me rather frequently when I hand over money during pet food store runs, and then wonder whether they are either fleecing me for pet food, as my rats don't get any extra special organic gourmet rat food or anything, or whether I should worry about what exactly they sell me as breakfast cereal that it cost so much less than the processed grain/vegetable/animal protein mix they sell as rat food.

Comments

[sholio]

I kinda wonder the same thing, because I have a major sweet tooth for desserts and such, but a lot of processed food really boggles me at how overly sweet (or salty, overspiced, etc) it tends to be. And starting my day with a bowl of sugar just doesn't feel good. We eat a lot of granola and have tried for a long time to find a bran that isn't unpleasantly sweet, but you pretty much have to put up with it or make your own, apparently. (The idea of diluting actually had not occurred to me! Now I'm thinking that maybe it'd be a good idea to toast some oats and keep them on hand to tone down the oversweetness of commercial granola and make it last longer.)

[ratcreature]

Yeah. I'm not all that zealous against eating processed food in principle, but I mostly cook from scratch as I have little money but time enough, and I guess that may sensitize you as well to how extreme some of the pre-made stuff is. (Though frankly some of the sanctimonious "food processing is evil" crusaders get on my last nerve, and I spent much of my formative young adult years in the company of and sympathizing with vegan animal rights activists, who I always thought could not be topped in preachiness about food.)

I don't always want sweet chocolatey things for breakfast, often I eat plain porridge with fruit or bread or other stuff, but sometimes I really like that kind of thing. Only not quite as sweet as the option sold.

I even tried one of the extra expensive organic oat chocolate crunchy mueslis once, but that was almost as sweet, only in the ingredients was organic brown cane sugar, instead of regular sugar. I guess people who like their oats in crunchy roasted clusters rather than natural oats mostly prefer them really sweet, regardless of whether they buy organic or not. So I went back to the one that is much more in my price range, and diluting works out quite well, since obviously plain oats are cheaper still, even if it's then not all crunchy, as I don't bother to roast the plain rolled oats myself.