The Student News Site of Malvern Preparatory School

Friar's Lantern

The Student News Site of Malvern Preparatory School

Friar's Lantern

The Student News Site of Malvern Preparatory School

Friar's Lantern

Catching up with ketchup

Catching+up+with+ketchup

After 18 years, my run without ever trying ketchup comes to an end.

“How have you never tried ketchup? Are you crazy?”

This is the response I get every time someone asks if I want ketchup and I respond by saying that I don’t want it and that I have never tried it. In a matter of seconds, a polite offering of a condiment turns into actual anger and befuddlement.

On Monday, December 11, I fought through my uneasiness with the tomato based dipping condiment and decided to try ketchup for the first time in my life.

The drive to Smashburger is still a blur. I was nervous as I sat there pondering whether or not I would enjoy the ketchup. If I didn’t, which is what I expected, it would confirm to me that ketchup is just unnecessary calories. If I did like it, however, I would have to live with the fact that I spent 18 years of my life refusing to ever eat something that I actually liked.

It was a brisk winter afternoon as I entered the greatest burger place in the borough of Malvern. I decided to go simple with my order: one order of french fries and a soda to wash down the ketchup in case I didn’t like it. As the Smashburger employee walked over, he had no idea what he was handing me.

As I sat there with my ketchup-phobia, I took deep breaths to calm down. I was persistent on pouring the ketchup into the corner of my tray because I did not want to ruin a perfectly good plate of french fries.

I then went on to pick up the french fry, dip it in the ketchup, and take a bite. Well, really I picked up the french fry, dipped it in the ketchup, and freaked out until I was forced to take a bite by my friends who were with me. After all of this stress and anxiety, the first bite of ketchup was monumental!

This is what I would have liked to say.

My experience, however, was much more uneventful. The ketchup really did not taste like anything. I thought that it had a strange texture and did not really add anything to the taste of the fries.

After tasting the ketchup, I decided to look at the nutrition facts on the back of the bottle of Heinz. I found that there are over 20 calories in one serving of ketchup. Add that to another 350-some calories for the french fries, and that is just not a healthy snack. While writing this, I decided to do the math on the caloric intake from ketchup. If a person eats two servings of ketchup every day, they will have eaten 14,600 calories from ketchup alone in one year. I am 18 years old. If someone eats two servings of ketchup every single day for 18 years, they will have consumed 262,800 calories of ketchup. I am happy to pass on the Heinz bottle.

Through this whole trial, I have concluded that people are so obsessed with ketchup because they are the opposite of me. As a child, I somehow fell through the ketchup cracks. I think ever since Heinz tried to make that purple ketchup, I decided to avoid it at all cost. Therefore, I have built up an appetite that doesn’t need ketchup for me to enjoy certain foods.

For most other people, however, they have been eating foods with ketchup for as long as they can remember. Their appetite now revolves around the condiment. These people do not know how to judge a french fry solely on the merit of the fry.

Looking back on my experience with trying ketchup, I am happy that I was forced to do it. It has helped me improve my argument on why ketchup is not a necessary food item. The wise Sun Tzu once said, “If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.” My enemy, in this case, was ketchup. However, I never really knew that much about it. Now that I have tried ketchup, I know myself in that I do not need it to enjoy food, and with this knowledge I do not fear people telling me that I am missing out on it.

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