In last week’s Endeavour, Paige Murray shared five tips for student survival. One of these was that after a hard day, it’s OK to go home and eat Kraft Dinner. We all do it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
But is it still the classic student staple food it once was? Is there an equally tasty but less expensive brand out there?
I called upon some macaroni-loving friends and we embarked on a quest to find the next best thing.
After searching nearly every major grocery store in the city, seven different brands entered the mac-and-cheese squared circle.
Western Family, available at Save-On-Foods weighed in at $1.07 a box. Annie’s Organic, which contained the least pasta, ranged in price from $1.77 to a staggering $2.79. Great Value from Wal-Mart was the cheapest at 57 cents. President’s Choice and Superstore’s No Name brand rang up at 79 cents and 68 cents respectively. Our Safeway white cheddar flavour was $1.50. Last, but not least, a box of the good stuff I paid $1.99 for a box of Kraft Dinner Original.
In this blind taste test, my guinea pigs were asked to score each variety according to its pasta quality and its level of cheesiness. The results, I admit, were not very surprising. Five testers out of eight correctly identified the real KD and all but one listed it as their favourite.
Great Value was a great bargain, but it didn’t win any prizes with its overly sharp flavour. Annie’s Organic wasn’t cheesy enough for us, although kudos is due for their efforts to be environmentally friendly.
President’s Choice tasted fine, but had an odd greenish colour!! hat reminded us of grainy whole-wheat pasta (but we were OK with the orange colour of the rest of our samples!).
Western Family held steady in the middle of the pack with an acceptable pasta and moderately cheesy flavour.
After going through five pots of mac and cheese, we were no closer to identifying a suitable substitute.
Just as we thought we were about to be washed away by the riptide of cheese, a tie for second place emerged! Safeway’s white cheddar flavour approached maximum levels of cheesy goodness, and was secretly dyed orange by Yours Truly before serving (because I am cruel and got a kick out of confusing my tasters).
Superstore’s No Name brand won points for its tender, minimally starchy pasta and a smooth cheese consistency most similar to the real deal. When we considered the price, it pulled ahead to win the title.
OK, it’s still no KD. Maybe there really is no substitute out there, but according to our incredibly scientific and precise testing methods, Superstore’s No Name brand is about as close as we’re going to get.
If you’re a fan of ketchup with your mac and cheese, you probably won’t be able to tell the difference anyway. So go ahead, eat up!