As I sit here admiring my 88-cent container of mustard, I can’t help feeling self-conscious.

I know that restaurants advertise their “value menus” and retailers offer no-frills knockoffs of their glitziest products, but I keep picturing the corporate CEOs loathing such concessions as a necessary evil to appease the (ugh!) cheapskate rabble.

(“I thought all the franchise owners got the memo to partner with Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and upsell customers the Eternally Happy Meal!”)

The overused word “value” grates on my nerves, anyway. Shouldn’t it be a “given” that all shoppers seek value for their hard-earned dollars? Who walks into a True Value hardware store and says, “I want a ball peen hammer that contains 999,999 insect parts per million – and keep the change”?

Sometimes it’s readily apparent which functions, ingredients or durability expectations are surrendered when passing up premium........

© Yuma Sun