re: 10 Reasons To Never Eat Free Food

Mmmm... Free Food

I'm a pretty heavy serious eats follower.  Recently they had a link to Darya Pino's site summertomato.com.  It seems like a great site, focusing on healthy and local eating. This article by Darya Pino entitled "10 Reasons To Never Eat Free Food" intrigued me.

Having spent more time than most in school i think i have an over adept predilection to free food.   This is ironic, considering i never or rarely look at prices at the market.  However, i still think there is a time and a place for attempting the consumption of "free food", even for us self proclaimed "foodies".  Sorry to those who dislike that term, please suggest a new one.
I'm sure i agree with her, in general, and if you are eating free food, when you wouldn't be eating otherwise, then they are indeed "empty calories".   I'll respond to her various arguments where i think there can be exceptions.  My point of view may not be quite as "healthy" as hers:

1. It’s cheap.  Not all cheap things are bad.

2. It’s flavorless.  If it's flavorless: 1. stop eating 2. don't continue eating it 3. take note.   doesn't this go for all food?   this is when eating "free" food can be valuable.  sometimes lessons can only be learned the hard way.   For instance the $5 large "pizza" i recently couldn't help purchasing when domino's changed their recipe.   It only made me appreciate how good even terrible pizza can be relative to that garbage.  $5 and i had lunch, empty and sad lunch, for days.
Now i don't have to try domino's again for another decade (or more).

3. It’s bad for you.  Lot's of wonderful things are bad for you.  like all things, use judgment and in moderation.  Again, i appreciate her healthy point of view, i just don't share it all the time.

4. You aren’t saving money.  She says because you'll just eat again because this experience was so bad.  This might be true, when in doubt see my number 3 above.

5. You’ll feel gross later.  This is probably true, IF the food is bad.  Not all free food is bad.  She must be talking about food that shows up on carts at meetings and the like.  There is lots of other types of free food.  Anyone ever eat food at google?  it's free.  it's not terrible.  or so i hear

6. It screws up your metabolism.  It can.  walking fast to the mailbox does too.  see my number 3.

7. You’ll gain weight.  isn't this her number 3? see my number 3.

8. You’re eating empty calories.  isn't this her number 7 which is her number 3?  see my numbers 3 & 5.

9. You don’t need it.  I'm starting to think she doesn't like food nor adventure.

10. It isn’t worth it. probably right.  but sometimes the juice is worth the squeeze.  

while i disagree with a lot of her arguments, i agree with a lot of it too.  This stems from different points of view, i suppose.  i'm fairly healthy, I try to not eat to excess and I will try just about anything once.

I ate the leftovers of my breakfast from saturday for lunch, yesterday.  It would have gone in the trash if i hadn't brought it home.   Does this make it free?  i thoroughly enjoyed it on both saturday and yesterday.

go check out her site, some real thought provoking articles and info