I married into a ketchup family 30 years ago, and though I’ve raised six ketchup-loving children, some of them like mustard as well. So as the leader of a successful multi-condiment family, I think I’m well-qualified to take up this challenge.

I could easily live without ketchup, but I have always loved mustard — its bite and sassiness, its lack of sweetness, and, quite frankly, its low, low price. When you buy ketchup it’ll set you back at least 2 bucks, but not so my little yellow-bottled bargain. You may even get change from your “Where’s George” bill if there’s a sale on.

More importantly, it has NO calories. That’s right. None. Squeeze to your heart’s content, folks. If you can take the zing, it will deliver it fat and calorie-free. Mustard stains come out easier than ketchup too. Trust me. Plus, mustard has a happy color — the same as the little smiley face. As a matter of fact, the first smiley face may have been made out of mustard! Ketchup, however, is the color of death, and has been used to simulate BLOOD in low budget B-movies. Another plus of mustard is that it won’t kill you if you leave it out in the sun all day at a picnic. Ketchup goes rancid and mayo can fill an emergency room, but it’s just plain hard to kill mustard. I’ve seen bottles last a whole year.

This leads me to its crowning point — versatility. Ketchup comes in one form, sickly sweet red (except those weird colors that packed the Dollar Store shelves a few years ago — what was that, Heinz?). Mustard, on the other hand, can be bold, tart, spicy or sweet, to suit whatever strikes your fancy, and it comes in yellow, brown, spicy, spicy brown, horseradish, German, Dijon, and honey (which even my ketchup-loving husband loves!). It works on and in hot dogs, chicken, sausages, burgers, egg salad, grilled cheese, salad dressing, wings, deviled eggs, and especially chili (it’s the secret ingredient in mine!) — to name just a few.

In conclusion, I’ll point out that mustard (seed) is the only condiment mentioned in the Bible, while ketchup has barely recovered from its 1980s scandal, when President Reagan declared it to be a “vegetable.” Ketchup is made from tomatoes, which in their overripe state are mainly used to attack bad entertainment: those B movies, NASCAR, or anything with Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton in it.

Face it, rotten tomatoes just cannot compete with mountain-moving taste, even when those tomatoes are aimed at filthy rich drama queen divas. Now please vote for me and admit that as good as ketchup is, it’s just too one-dimensional. It cannot cut the mustard.

Mustard? Please. Ketchup is king of the condiments. Always has been, always will be. Well, except for during biblical times. We’ve come a long way.

First, we’ll deal with the mustard issue. My main problem with most of mustard’s “strong suits” is that I just don’t like mustard’s flavor, to the point where not using any condiments at all would make even more sense than preferring mustard.

If I wanted to save money, I wouldn’t buy ketchup or mustard. If I were incredibly desperate to save calories, neither would end up on my lean turkey dog. (Incidentally, according to the USDA National Nutrient Database, some prepared mustard actually has 3 calories in every packet to ketchup’s 6. Not quite calorie-free; be wary, dieters!)

Also, while we’re pretending that we eat condiments for nutrition, ketchup has a bunch more potassium, vitamin A and vitamin C than mustard does.

Don’t even get me started on lycopene.

I also want to address the issue of ketchup’s lack of variety. A fine point, but only if you are able to improve on perfection. Mustard simply isn’t appealing enough in only one form, so it has several varieties in a desperate attempt to appeal to SOMEONE.

Ketchup, on the other hand, is just fine as is; you take it as it comes to you and don’t have to ruin it by adding honey or extra spice to it.

The bottom line is, ketchup is simply delicious.

This clash is totally a matter of opinion, but I submit to hypothesis that, generally, when one looks for a condiment, they aren’t overly concerned with price, calorie content (mayonnaise, anyone?), which one has more varieties, or which has better real-world connotations (mad props, though, to my man Ronald Reagan for declaring it a vegetable; try getting anyone to do that with mustard!).

You look for deliciousness, an arena in which ketchup simply can’t be beat. It’s welcome on my food anytime.