The Evil Bagel

Several years ago there was a Great Canadian Bagel store in my neighborhood. On Saturdays, after the gym I would go the Great Canadian Bagel and get a bag of bagels, and a container of flavoured cream cheese. It was my favorite treat for the weekends. One day I went to get my treat, and they were closed. I was so upset. I didn’t understand. I knew that they weren’t very busy and I knew that they were kind of pricey. But I also knew that they were delicious. It just didn’t make any sense to me.

Jump forward to last week. My economics instructor was talking about demand and supply (surprise, surprise) and we started talking about things that once there was a great demand for but for various reasons that demand changed. His question to us – what were the reasons the demand change? He caught my attention when he decided to use the Great Canadian Bagel as an example. Apparently, what happened, was at the time the bagel was most popular, an assertion was made stating that bagels were extremely fattening, bad for you, like eating a loaf of bread etc.

It was an ‘aha’ moment for me. It’s true, I’ve heard those very things, mostly from people who follow trademarked diets (e.g. Weight Watchers, Herbal Magic).

So this is my most insincere, ‘chicken canon’, thanks to you, destroyers of all good things, thanks for giving the bagel a bad wrap…thanks for making people think that the bagel is single handedly responsible for making them fat and unhealthy. I salute you with my everything bagel, smothered in light cream cheese!