With less money to spend every month, many Americans are turning to coupons to stretch their food budget. Last weekend, I decided to join the ranks, and sat down at my kitchen table, armed with scissors and the two inserts from our Sunday paper. And started clipping away.
I decided to separate the coupons into three piles:
Coupons that passed the test of my health conscious, green filter, and the only ones I may possibly use:
- Minute Maid Juices, Lipton Teas, Stash Tea, EarthGrains Whole Wheat Bread, Tabasco – not a hundred percent sure about the EarthGrains Bread, I tried to check the ingredients online, without success –
The suspicious pile, coupons for products that won’t kill you, but all come with health/nutrition problems attached, to various degrees. Red flags such as too much salt, too much sugar, too much fat, GMO baggage, unnecessary packaging, radiation, pesticides, excessive processing, toxic eakage from plastic linings, added chemicals, grains stripped away from their wholeness, empty calories, fried potatoes, too much red meat:
- Progresso Chicken Broth, Green Giant Frozen Vegetables, Star Olive Oil, Vinegar, and Olives, Mrs. Dash Seasoning Blend, Spice Islands Spices, Quaker Oatmeal, Fresh Express Pre-cut Salad, Del Monte Canned Fruit and Vegetables, Ragu Pasta Sauce, Skippy Peanut Butter, College Inn Broths and Stocks, Uncle Ben’s Long Grain and Wild Rice, Lawry’s Seasonings, Newman’s Dressings, Swiss Miss Cocoa, Bisquick Pancake Mix, Best Foods Mayonnaise, Pillsbury Dinner Rolls and Biscuits, Daisy Sour Cream, PoppyCock Nuts, Pam Spray, True North Nuts, Lipton Dinners, Kraft Salad Dressings, CountryCrock Cinnamon Apples, International House of Pancakes, Black Angus Steak House, Bakers Square Dinners, Betty Crocker Au Gratin Potatoes, Jell-O, Planters Nuts, C&H Sugar, Tyson Fully Cooked Bacon, Fiber One Toaster Pastries, Betty Crocker Cookie Mix, Quaker Chewy Granola Bars, Lee Kum Kee Sauces, Hillshire Farm Cocktail Links
The obviously junky bunch:
- Betty Crocker Frosting, Cool-Whip, Big G Kid Cereals, Chuck E Cheese Pizza and Coca Cola Drinks, White Castle Microwavable Burgers, Reddi Whip, Entenmann’s Doughnuts, Hershey’s Chocolates, Kozy Schack Desserts, M&Ms
If I had any lingering doubts about the intentions of the food industry as a whole, this little exercise put them to rest. Coupons were not created with the interest of consumers in mind. Rather they are yet another marketing tactic from consumer packaged goods manufacturers to push their highly processed foods, regardless of their actual health benefit or lack thereof.
I say, let us not fall into the coupon trap, and seek instead, other, smarter ways to save, that won’t hurt our health.
What a great experiment. Toss that pile of circulars into the recycling bin!
Good on you! Coupons are such a waste of resources – promotion disguised as savings. I have to admit to looking through coupons of late, in hopes of being thrifty myself, but usually anything that is being advertised is a product I can make myself – better and for less – like packaged cookies, salad dressing. And don’t get me started on frozen foods (with or without plastic!)
I fail to see the difference between pile #2 and #3. I would also like to know what information went into each decision. For example, what’s wrong with the olive oil and the rice? And what’s good about the Lipton teas?
Our local health food store has free coupons good for a lot of really good things…but you’re right, of course, still a promotion…man, is it grey out today in pittsburgh…
This has bugged me for so long! For years, living in Texas, I clipped coupons. But, it was always for “extras”. I have always served my family fresh and (locally as possible) since my kids were born. Living in France, it was natural – living in the U.S. – not so much. I digress. In Texas, stores would have 2X and 3X coupons which made the effort more attractive. I still ended up using them primarily for deodorant, batteries, condiments and sometimes cereal (the cost of cereal being outrageous!) Now that I live again in the Bay Area, I don’t see people using coupons nor do I see the promotions So, although i keep them periodically, they tend to languish in my drawer. I spoke with Whole Foods about this (I lived in Austin which is their hdqtrs) – saying, “It would be GREAT if companies/stores that cared about the quality of food would offer coupons for quality food!” I’ve noticed they have been providing SOME couponing at the store I visit in Los Altos..not sure the corporate policy. Whew! Can you tell this bugs me?
You will rarely, if ever, see coupons for raw, unprocessed items, which always cost less than the packaged and advertised stuff. This piece corresponds perfectly, I think, with your piece on what people buy (Nov 7): lots of junk that they see advertised on TV. Unfortunately, people don’t know that they are supposed to eat *food*, and mostly they’re eating stuff that just tastes good and fills them up for a while.
I get so angry when I consider just how many of these wads of coupon-filled newsprint pages are distributed throughout my city. Used or unused, the resources spent are outrageous.
Nice to see that I am not the only one feeling this way. I feel it is so important to bring these kinds of issues out in the open. Subtle ways that we are being manipulated as consumers into making unhealthy, unsustainable choices.
[…] The Coupon Trap – Are coupons really worth it? You may be saving money but are you getting anything healthy? […]
I learned long ago even if I gave up coupons that I could save money and eat healthy. I focus on not buying processed foods which are most of the coupons I used to get and never use. I buy fresh or frozen food, dried beans, pasta, and grains (rice, couscous etc) and my husband cooks from scratch. We buy local in the summer when we can we are in an area that has winter so our growing season is shorter than some other places in the US. We also shop at a lot of local mom and pop international food markets because we eat a lot of ethnic foods and can’t get the spices or vegtables locally. The food may be imported (less expensive) but at least we are supporting a small local buisnesses. And we’re saving money and eating better to boot!