Patel said it quite clearly on the first page of Chapter 9 from Stuffed and Starved..."We don't really choose our food - our food chooses us." You might find yourself questioning this simple statement, "we don't really choose our food." If we don't choose our food, then who does? No one is making me pick the Marie Calender's microwaveable dinner over the Healthy choice. No one is forcing me to eat Tostito's scoops chips instead of On the Border chips....or are they? Why am I drawn to some brands over others? Why am I willing to pay I slightly higher price for a product that is basically the same as a cheaper product. It really does come down to the littlest things. For some reason ( I'm lazy) I prefer a chip that is already the perfect shape for scooping up dip, and I'm willing to pay more for it. So you could say that convenience plays a large role in what we "choose" to consume.
Patel makes the argument that our choices have already been made for us by our environment, our customs and our everyday routine. He says, "Choice is the word we're left with to describe our plucking one box rather than another off the shelves, and it's the word we're taught to use." So yes, we do have some say in our final purchase, but really, we're just choosing between the items that have already been chosen for us. I thought of an analogy that I thought explained it well. When I was a little kid my mom would pick out my outfits for me. When I got a little older I was super psyched to finally be able to pick out my own outfits. If you think about it though, my mom is the one who purchased all of my clothes and I was only able to choose my day's outfit from the clothes she had already deemed appropriate and bought. I thought I was making my own choices (and on some level I guess I was) but my choices were limited to what my mom had chosen before me.
I found an interesting video online that's all about the psychology of supermarkets and how they influence our "choices".
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