"We don't go nowhere without toast, we thugged out" - 50 Cent

This historic writing marks the beginning of my blog, Up Up Down Down. You may think from its title that I’ll be writing about Contra, or any number of other video games produced by Konami. Although I reserve the right to eventually write about classic Nintendo games whose domination was initially made possible by this “secret” code, there are more pressing matters to discuss. Over the course of this blog, I’ll be reporting the some of the most grossly overrated and tragically underrated products/things/ideas/people.

Let’s begin with what many may understandably believe to be one of the most important food developments in history, when considering its frequency of everyday consumption, glorification in the media, and propaganda spread by food pyramid peddlers everywhere: toast.

Toast is overrated.

My friend was recently passively aggressively accused of “accidentally” having taken her ex-roommate’s toaster. It was an old toaster, complete with rust and stains, worth perhaps $10, but managed to create quite a bit of contention among the two of them. Its fun to hear my friend tell the story, but making this story possible is about all that toast has done for me.

Of course, just because toast doesn’t do it for me, doesn’t necessarily mean that toast is overrated in general. People are allowed to have different preferences (although I’d like to believe that mine are pretty good and you should respect my opinion just because of that). But I think that sometimes peoples’ observed choices are affected by misinformation, habit, or just a lack of having fully thought things through. One of the goals of my writing will be to help you thing these things through.

If you think about it objectively, all of the good aspects of eating toast are due to products or characteristics that typically accompany it, rather than the toast itself. Let’s face it. Butter makes anything good. Jam’s good. Peanut butter’s great. I could eat cinnamon and sugar by the spoonful. But plain, dry toast? No, thank you.

I do like the warmth of toast. But you don’t need a toaster to have warm bread. Quizno’s subs are good, but not because they are oven-toasted. Toasting them may make them a little better, but only because it warms the sub overall and melts the cheese.

Finally, let’s consider alternatives. If there is anyone out there that would choose a slice of toasted wonderbread over a warm buttermilk biscuit, you might as well stop reading right now. We have fundamentally different outlooks on life, and you’ll never agree with anything I say. But biscuits are just one alternative. If it’s breakfast you’re after, why not go for a muffin? If it’s lunch time, go for a grilled panini rather than the toasted club. If you’re concerned about the condiment containment abilities of spongy, un-toasted bread, why not go for a pita or a wrap?

Important caveat: I’ve only discussed regular toast. Other toast-related products, such as French toast, toaster streudel, and croutons, differ in their over/underratedness (with French toast and toaster struedel being, if anything, slightly underrated, and croutons being perhaps the most overrated toast-related item of them all – there is nothing worse then biting into a refreshing salad of cool lettuce and crisp, fresh vegetables and feeling that dry, rough texture cutting into the roof of your mouth and the unexpected resistance of a dense cube of crumbling carbohydrates, most of which is left stuck in your teeth. If it’s the seasoning you’re after, go for the non-fat-free salad dressing instead).

Next up: Key Lime Pie flavored yogurt.