This is our challenge:
- Our freedom of choice.
- The way we make choices.
- Unexpected consequences of markets.
In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan describes how food travels from the earth to our tables. Great book in its own right.
The problem referred to in the title is that we have to choose what to eat, in a way our ancestors did not. And we make choices that are not compatible with our physiology.
Other research shows that our emotional brains make the choices.
So big industrial food companies cater to our emotional brains. These consumer brand companies are not evil. They are just doing what sells food.
But what sells food isn’t good for us. What sells food is what pushes the buttons on our emotional brains. So the food companies evolve to sell food that our elephants pick, like Lucky Charms or McDonalds or Pizza Hut.
Even “healthy” food is sold to our emotional brains. Consider Pollan’s “American Pastoral” for example. Or me eating bran muffins because of newspaper stories in the 1990s.
This is behavioral economics at its best (or worst).
Elephants and Economics 