After posting my comment while eating a square, I went to a meeting to which someone brought doughnuts. I'll normally grab a doughnut, but a mealsquare sits heavy in the belly and I had no interest in another snack.

That afternoon, another meeting caused me to miss my lunch, so I went downstairs and paid $1.50 for a bag of sugar—I mean a Big Texas. I love those things, because they are optimized for my dopamine receptors rather than for nutritional balance. That's when I ordered a box of 30 mealsquares.

So the question is what you will do if you don't pay $3 for an optimized gingerbread loaf. If you're regularly eating oatmeal for breakfast and a sandwich or some other real food for lunch, you might want to pass or wait for a cheaper knockoff. I often bring a box of cereal or a can of Pringles from the corner pharmacy to my office, so by paying a little more I think I am significantly improving my snacking performance.

These days I am saving $7 a day by biking to work, so it's easy to rationalize an overpriced cake and a fancy coffee from Reiter's.