I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos where people try different food products and then give it a rating. “Three out of five stars” they’ll say, or “eight out of ten stars!”
What does that even mean?
I wanted to have a more objective way of rating food items, especially as inflation means we need to make the most of our food dollars. After a lot of consideration, I decided to rate food items on five different aspects:
- Truth in Advertising: Does the food look like the picture on the package? (We taste first with our eyes, after all, and often base our purchase decision at least in part on the illustration.)
- Convenience: Is it easy to prepare? (If it’s complicated to prepare, I may as well prepare something from scratch.)
- Flavor: Does it taste good?
- Nutrition: No convenience food will ever be nutritionally complete, but does it even make an attempt?
- Cost: Is the cost reasonable?
To make things simple, I’ve decided to grade each of these aspects on a pass/fail basis. Something gets zero points if it’s not acceptable and it gets one point if it’s acceptable. And on rare occasions, something may get two stars if it’s exceptional.