Free Samples...Where?

Look familiar?

Grocery stores all over the place are now or have been offering "sample-stations".  The idea is simple marketing: have customers try foods in hopes that they end up purchasing what they tried.  I'd say it's working for the store if they have continued to provide samples on a weekly basis. 

I was in the local Meijer a few Fridays ago around noon and what do you know...it was sample day!  As I walked through the dried food isles and wrapped my way back around the milk/dairy and meats to the produce there were at least 15 sample-stations. 

Anything from sesame seed coated chicken nuggets, whoopee pie cake mixes, pumpkin pie, green bean salad, crackers, cookies, fish, etc.  You name it, they had something like it to sample.  Most people I noticed walking through the store in search of the next sample-station.  It was like they had gone there for lunch!  In fact, if they had gone there for lunch it probably wasn't THAT bad of an idea because most of the time the sample is so small it doesn't add up to much, right? Or does it?  The problem with it all is that most people probably had or were on their way to eat lunch and decided to have a few or 10 samples of the foods provided.  Yikes! And the even bigger problem is that they are thinking "it can't be that many calories for this small bite". 

Have you ever found yourself in this situation?  Thinking a sample is OK and that it can't be that many calories?  Re-think the situation and try to figure just how many calories it was! You would probably be surprised at the number it all racks up to be.  If you don't know the calories count 50 per bite as a rule of thumb...not a stuff-your-mouth-so-full-you're-going-to-spit-bite, but a normal bite.  For 10 samples...500 calories!!

The next time you see a sample-station at the grocery store or any where else think twice whether that bite is worth the calories. 

 

{image courtesy of www.fedupforlunch.com}