The Truth About SpaghettiOs

The majority of pasta dishes prepared for me as a child were home made and thus “real”. However, the transition from living at home to living in a dorm room has made it difficult to eat real pasta on a regular basis. For this reason, the only pasta I have eaten in the last month is Campbell’s SpaghettiOs. SpaghettiOs are both affordable and easy to find in many grocery stores. Furthermore, I do not have access to an oven and it is easy for me to create a quick, easy meal of SpaghettiOs by simply heating them in the microwave.
Unfortunately, Campbell’s SpaghettiOs are not my favorite food and therefore I only eat them every once in a while. To me, it is very evident this pasta product is “fake” and has substantial differences from the “real” form of the food. Especially when analyzing its look, taste and smell. To begin with, SpaghettiOs simply do not look real. When I open the can, I see rubbery looking rings floating in a pasty marina sauce. Soon after, I am overwhelmed with a tomato like odor which has been bottled up for an unknown amount of time. Luckily, it tastes better than it looks or smells since its ingredients have been enriched and modified with enough enzymes to create a flavor equivalent to the real food.
On the contrary to real pasta, I believe SpaghettiOs fall into the junk food category. The product does not provide a significant source of vitamins or essential nutrients. In fact, “Spaghetti-O's lack any real nutritional value [therefore] food manufacturers attempt to add artificial nutritional value by fortifying processed junk foods with synthetic nutrients” according to The Weston A. Price Foundation. Furthermore, SpaghettiOs are higher in both sodium and calories and appear to be scientifically engineered to contain less cholesterol and more protein than home made spaghettios.
For this reason, I believe I will be returning to the real version of the food when I am able to afford it or when I live at home again. I feel the product is good as a temporary substitute but is unhealthy to consume regularly since the majority of its ingredients have been altered.