photo credit: Sophia Robinson
Lattes, candles, breads and cakes. Cookies, cereals, creamers, chocolate and more. What is all the hype on pumpkin spice? Is it worth the four months of worship? I personally do not understand why everyone loves pumpkin spice flavored things.
Pumpkin spice is too expensive. According to Starbucks.com, one grande [16 fl oz] Pumpkin Spice Latte costs $6.25, while the grande Caffè Latte costs only $4.96. Some people get a pumpkin spice latte daily, so after four months, the costs add up.
Candles are not much better; the smell of pumpkin spice is overbearing and too much. Everyone’s senses are different, but imagine eating dinner and all there is to smell is pumpkin. According to Bio Medical Central, 75-95 percent of taste comes from what people smell, so that pumpkin they smell can fully change the taste of their food.
Speaking about food, why are there so many pumpkin spice flavored things? Walking down the isles all I can see is pumpkin. There’s Oreos, Goldfish, yogurt, Poptarts, etc. All normal things right? Then there’s the not so normal stuff, and there’s stuff like pumpkin spice Pringles, tortilla chips, hummus and there is even pumpkin spice flavored Spam.
Not to mention the taste of pumpkin; it is too sweet and bitter at the same time. Honestly, it tastes like baby food, adding all the other ingredients to make it pumpkin spice does not make it better. Unless it is covered in cinnamon, it just doesn’t taste good.
When people think of pumpkin spice they probably think it’s a healthy treat, with stuff like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, but half the time most pumpkin spice flavored things have very little amounts of pumpkin, if any. The original Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte didn’t contain any real pumpkin.
Most American pumpkin spice products are UPF [Ultra Processed food], according to ewg.org. Over consumption of UPFs can be extremely harmful to the human body. Eventually eating too much UPF can lead to metabolism diseases, like Type II diabetes, Crohn’s disease, depression, etc.
People spend the entirety of fall eating and drinking pumpkin spice, they spend months before then eager for fall and then what after? After, they get sad it’s gone and it’s all they can think about. Creating the few month obsession into a year long cycle.
Not only do people obsess over pumpkin spice, but they also judge people who don’t. Whenever I mention not liking pumpkin spice I always get looked at like I’m crazy.
Everyone has different taste preferences and opinions, but pumpkin spice is not good enough to obsess over it for just a few months. I don’t think pumpkin spice is worth the money or health problems it will cost you for the few months it’s popular.
