Category: General

Hello, fellow candy connoisseurs, french fry fiends, and pretzel… appreciators. I’m Mike, a new reviewer here at The Impulsive Buy.

As I sit here looking out the window at the Wisconsin winter, there are only a few things that would convince me to venture into the sub-zero temperatures. The first is going out in search of new snacks. While some Wisconsinites get by on a steady diet of beer, cheese curds, and the ironically named summer sausage, I like a bit more variety in my diet. I’m the guy who still gets excited about the latest Taco Bell iteration of meat-cheese-vegetable in a tortilla, or the newest Oreo flavor. If it’s new, I want to try it.

The second reason is to go to class. Immediately post-high school, I had dreams of being of a chef, and so went to culinary school. The crushing reality that working in the restaurant industry is the worst possible existence (unholy triad of low pay, long hours, and brutally harsh conditions) had me back at square one education and career-wise.

I’m currently finishing up a degree in English. With my dual degrees, you could say I have a very particular set of skills. They may not make me a nightmare for people like you, but they are virtually useless except for reviewing Pop-Tarts. Watch out, Liam Neeson. I’m a quarter Irish, too.

The third reason is to go to my job, where I work for a major food manufacturer. “Wait!” you might say. “How can we trust you to be honest about the industry you’re a part of!”

Fear not, gentle reader. Though I know how deeply in love with their job everyone is, how fundamental it is to their sense of self, and how it shapes their every thought every waking hour, I promise to put aside such things in the name of journalistic integrity. I’ll not be reviewing items made by the company I work for, and I promise to give my honest appraisal of those made my its competitors.

I look forward to many years of sharing my thoughts on one of my favorite subjects: food, and the eating thereof.

Greetings, foodies from all across the world wide interwebs! I would say fate has brought us together for some higher purpose beyond anything we could fathom, but if I’m going to start off on an honest note here, I’m obsessed with anything that’s meant for human consumption.

Science suggests we all have five common tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and the more recent umami. Sorry, meat eaters, I’m not coming here on behalf of umami by any means, and my meat consumption would probably break your heart.

I come here as a way to avoid a pressing intervention my friends and family had planned after noticing my careless spending habits and compulsive late night drives to restaurants serving pancakes. IHOP, Cracker Barrel, Denny’s, and Bob Evans all might as well share joint bank accounts with me since I spend more money on pancakes at these places than I do on clothes.

My name is Caitlin Jennings (which I had waited this long to confess so hopefully you will all be too distracted to make any Caitlyn Jenner jokes), but as a child, my nickname was Little Debbie because of my obsession with pastries. As I’ve grown up into somewhat of an adult, I’ve gone from binging on pastries to binging on pints of ice cream AND pastries.

I know there are often two camps people fall under when they love ice cream: Ben & Jerry’s or Haagen-Dazs. To clear things up, I’m team Haagen-Dazs, but grew up eating Ben & Jerry’s. In a perfect world, Ben & Jerry’s would merge with Haagen-Dazs into a beautiful ice cream company selling off the wall flavored pints with endless mix-ins and that dense, Haagen-Dazs base.

Fun fact: science suggests we all have five common tastes, but did you know they’re also fighting for the addition of two more: fat and calcium? If this is true and we have seven basic tastes, consider me your girl for all things sweet, fat, and calcium.

Unfortunately, I’ve had to balance my dreams of eating copious amounts of pancakes and ice cream with the real world. I truly eat everything under the sun — regular food items, diet food items, and all things in between. I love taro, starfruit, dragon fruit, natto, kimchi, and the list continues to grow. However, I’ve probably lost a few taste receptors from scraping off so many taste buds after a bad experience I had with durian fruit.

But worry not. They’re recovering in time for me to write up some decent food reviews for you all! Cheers to a bright future together, and here’s to hoping I’m never asked to review anything remotely as abhorrent as durian!

*clinks ice cream spoons together for dramatic effect*

Hiya to all my fellow junk food foodies out there! My name’s Ms. Meghan, and I’m ever so very pleased to be the newest addition to The Impulsive Buy’s elite circle of reviewers!

So, who am I?

Well, I’m a lot of things!

• A full-time university student perusing a degree in Health Promotion.
• A part-time worker in my town’s local health-food store.
• I’m a pretty good cook.
• I have a ServSafe Manager Certification.
• I make homemade soaps and lotions.
• I brew my own kombucha.
• I’m 100 pounds lighter than I was five years ago.

And I bet by now you’re wondering, “What the heck is THIS girl doing here writing junk food reviews?” My response is that it’s all about balance, my fair foodie friends! While I certainly enjoy my new-normal diet of fruit, yogurt, and protein powder, I still find it comforting to indulge in all of my old staples.

My culinary know-how is more likely to be put to use in making cakes and pastries than it is in making some kale and quinoa bowl. If you offer me ice cream or birthday cake-flavored anything, there’s no way I’m going to turn you down. And don’t tell my coworkers, but my recycled kombucha bottle is just as likely to be filled with Mountain Dew Code Red as it is actual kombucha.

Seeing new treats in the forbidden inner aisles of the grocery store and trying to nag my poor mother into buying them for me has been something that I’ve always gotten endless joy from. But now that I’m all grown up and have my own set of wheels to get me to the store and my own money to buy snacks with, there’s no longer anyone or anything that can choc-block* me!

So, considering that about 20,000 new food products come out each year (according to the USDA Economic Research Service, at least) I guess it’s time for me to get munching! Arm yourselves with sporks and grabs some digestive enzymes, guys, because it’s going to be a wild ride!

*Choc-block – When one individual blocks their friend/family member/acquaintance from buying and eating some well-deserved chocolate.

Here are all the 2017 Season of Giving winners:

DAY 1 – Dunkin’ Donuts

Rory

DAY 2 – Burger King

Farnic

DAY 3 – Trader Joe’s

Dan

DAY 4 – Walmart

Michele

DAY 5 – Starbucks

Melissa

DAY 6 – Sonic

Tiffany

DAY 7 – Subway

Valerie

DAY 8 – McDonald’s

Den

DAY 9 – Panda Express

Mary Anne

DAY 10 – Mystery Gift Card

Sascha

DAY 11 – Target

Holly

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone who participated!

Greetings and salutations fellow lovers of all foods with questionable nutritional value. I’m the kind of person (some would say a “special” kind of person) who upon seeing a commercial at 2:15 a.m. introducing a new fast food concoction will immediately put on my slippers — and probably some type of pants — and hop into my car to sample said new product.

While I like to think my knowledge of fast food vittles is pretty solid, my knowledge of fast food restaurant operating hours is sometimes lacking. On more than one occasion, these late night trips have ended in cruel disappointment when I arrive to find a darkened drive-thru.

Then, when I return home empty-handed at 2:30 a.m., I must explain to my just-awoken wife why I left the house barely dressed in the middle of the night. Thankfully, she has seen my fast food obsession all too often during daylight hours and generally accepts my explanation while shaking her head and falling back asleep as she questions some of her life choices.

As a teenager, I got to experience the wonderful world of fast food as a somewhat-dedicated employee of Taco Bell. Mind you, this was many years ago when The Bell had those hideous polyester uniforms that were mostly brown with subtle accents of white, orange, and yellow, as if the company was trying to match those equally hideous San Diego Padres uniforms of the time.

The upside to working there was that an absent and disinterested management team allowed me and my esteemed colleagues to experiment with different Taco Bell ingredient combinations, and thus, a love for all that is new and unique in the world of fast (and junk) food was born.

After attending college for a period of time that fell short of those pesky graduation requirements, I got a regular job (not at Taco Bell). Sadly, this job does not afford many opportunities to indulge in my fast/junk food fetish, which is why being a contributor to The Impulsive Buy is a dream come true. Truth be told, that dream is not exactly at the top of my list, but it certainly seemed more achievable than most others, as I’ve been informed many times that no matter how much I wish or hope I can never become a dinosaur.