Musings from Graceland

SAMPLING WORKS

When I was employed at Chick-fil-A back in high school, I learned the power of sampling when I worked as the main sample girl. It was my job to stand out in the mall with a plateful of nuggets and offer one to each passerby. I saw customer after customer stop, eat one, and then quite usually, go in and order some. I also saw my waist line increasing as the power of sampling worked on me! At that time, employees could eat for free so by the time my meal break came around, I was ready for a heaping plateful of the delicious chicken bites.

This past week, I was reminded of the power of samples. I was in Kroger shopping for the regular produce items --- bananas, apples, and grapes --- when I spotted a display of cut-up honeydew melon. I've never cared for that particular fruit in the past but it was free and I was hungry so I tried one.

WOW! Was it ever good. So yeah, I tried another bite and then promptly put a melon in my buggy.

Then another customer and I noticed a bright yellow melon about the same size and the produce worker told us it was a Golden Melon and was very sweet. So I snagged one of those as well.



Like I said, the marketing technique of offering free samples works. Because I didn't just buy them last time, but I'll be buying them next week and the week after and probably the week after as well.

In my journey to eat and live healthier, I'm always looking for yummy things that are as good for my senses as good for my body, especially snacks that fit this category.

This afternoon I was really, really hungry. I thought I was out of my standby reduced-fat, whole grain, satisfyingly crunchy Triscuits and I'd already had peanut butter for the day, another standby. So I decided to live a little on the wild side.




I grabbed the fat-free cottage cheese, cut some Golden melon up over it, sprinkled on some ground up flax seed, stirred it all up, and took a bite.

Another WOW!

Seriously, this combination was really, really good and very satisfying. In fact, 3 hours later, I'm still full.

So next time you're thinking you don't like a certain fruit, give it a try. You might find out like I did, that even though I've thought for 45 years that I didn't like any melon but watermelon, that you are wrong. And you might just discover a new favorite food.

Long live sampling!