Whenever you eat something, you like to give the food some enhancements like ketchup with your fries or milk in your bowl of cereal. While people swear by these additions, there are things to consider before adding them.

Milk with cereal is something you’ve always done. It didn’t feel like a bowl of cereal without some good ol’ cow’s milk (or any other kind of milk). However, most cereal will get soggy if you leave it in there for too long. Also, people tend to put in a lot of milk. As someone who is unable to tolerate milk, this is pretty disgusting. Some people like to argue that cereal is hard to eat without milk. If you absolutely need to have milk with your cereal, I would recommend splitting it. Rather than having milk in the same bowl as your cereal, pour the milk into a separate dish. This way, you can still guarantee crunch with every bite without the milk ruining it.

(Peter Remmers / Flickr)

The one cereal I can get behind drowning in milk is chocolate-flavoured cereal. Chocolate-flavoured cereal is abnormally sweet for what it’s supposed to be. The contrast with milk helps tone down the sweetness by a lot and you won’t feel like you’re just eating a bowl of sweet chocolate. However, I would just recommend getting cereal that’s not super chocolatey such as Reese’s Puffs.

Milk is also popular for dipping cookies. The logic behind this doesn’t make sense. Apparently, you’re supposed to taste more of the cookie when your cookies are dipped in milk. That just says something about the cookies you’re eating. The cookies you’re eating probably just don’t taste good probably from not having a sufficient amount of sugar, severe lack of chocolate chips or other additions, or something went wrong in the process.

(david pacey / Flickr)

Making things taste better is one of the few reasons why people put these enhancements. My mom likes to put salt on her mangos whenever they’re a bit sour. Usually, the mangoes that get this treatment are the ones she buys out of season. Why not just wait for them to be in season to guarantee sweet mangos? Fruits are supposed to be sweet, not salty. When I tried putting salt on tart mangos, it did not make them any sweeter than they should’ve been.

Ketchup is probably the most popular condiment you can add to food, primarily french fries. However, the people that drizzle ketchup all over their fries are monsters. Not every bite needs to be smothered in ketchup. Also, don’t you still want the taste of the potato without the tomato alteration? You wanted something savoury, not sweet. Having ketchup on your plate is also pretty disgusting. There’s stuff on your plate that will taste vile with ketchup, so why risk it? Why not just keep the ketchup on a separate dish? There’s stuff on your plate that’s meant to be crispy, and dipping it into something wet seems like it would ruin the integrity of the crunch.

(Matty Farah / Flickr)

There’s also the case of putting a lot of sauce in a sandwich. Sandwiches already have a lot going on with different meat and vegetables. The last thing you want is a lot of sauce ruining it by dominating your tongue. I know someone who used to have all the sauces in his sandwiches. One day, he tried ordering the sandwich but with less of each sauce. He was able to taste more of the meat, vegetables, and even the bun with less sauce. You are now able to taste the full range of the sandwich if you go with less sauce.

Bread is supposed to be healthy to some degree (unless you’re eating white bread. That stuff will never be healthy). However, people love putting butter on their toast. It’s not like putting peanut butter or chocolate hazelnut spread where the bread is there to support it. Butter just adds an unnecessary amount of flavour than there should be. It’s already a hassle spreading butter on toast anyways. You’ve probably broken your piece of toast while trying the spread rock-hard butter before. Rather than going through that pain for something unnecessary, just eat the bread as is.

(Clint Budd / Flickr)

Turkey and gravy are also a case of something needing a sauce. People love to argue that turkey will never taste good without gravy. Except for the fact that turkey can stand on its own without the need for gravy. Gravy is usually there to compensate for the fact that turkey is a naturally dry bird. However, this is mostly just by people cooking the turkey to oblivion. If they cook it a bit slower or use other methods such as frying (Note: This method can be dangerous. Please follow safety precautions before frying turkey) or sous vide, they can get better results. You’re already dedicating some time to this turkey, so why not give it extra care so you’re not forced to pour a ton of gravy on the dry pieces of meat? Sauces can also be used to compensate for the dryness of other meat such as cheaper cuts of steak. Again, why not just something a lot more tender to begin with like chicken or pork? They’re cheaper than expensive cuts of beef and will probably taste better.

Things are supposed to taste or feel a certain way. Sauces, milk, and salt brought too much freedom when it comes to dictating what a piece of food is supposed to taste like. Something that should be sweet should not be salty. Something that’s supposed to be savoury isn’t supposed to be sweet. Something that’s supposed to be crunchy is not supposed to be soggy. When you add these “enhancements”, the integrity of the food goes away. The fact that people just accepted these additions rather than thinking of ways to make their food better is odd. Turkey can be moist. Bread can taste good without butter. Mangos can taste good without salt. You just need to find food that tastes better.