Can You Resist $107 Worth of Advertising?

"The food industry spends more than $33 Billion — with a B — each year on advertising and promotion. In contrast, the National Cancer Institute spends $1 million a year to promote fruits & veggies.

Surely, the NCI isn’t the only one on our side, but still... this imbalance paints a clear picture of what we’re up against."

I read this blurb last year on Eating Rules, a blog I respect and regularly visit. (PS: I wrote a guest post there that I'm particularly proud of... have a look!)

Okay. This particular quote, believe it or not, has been bugging me for more than a year, and I just couldn't figure out why (yes, I'm obsessive like that). There's clearly an element of defeatism about it--something I hate to read in food blogs, because I believe consumers should take their power and their decision-making capabilities into their own hands.

There was something else wrong with the implicit logic here, but I just couldn't put my finger on it. It wasn't until the other day that I figured out exactly what it was.

Here's what I mean. $33 billion is a lot, right? I mean, that's an incomprehensibly large amount of money to everyone--except perhaps to dudes like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

So when we think about "a clear picture of what we're up against" and that clear picture includes incomprehensibly large sums of money, it's easy to think we're all doomed, isn't it? Nobody can fight off $33 billion bucks of advertising, right? Sigh. Yeah, I give up. Pass me the Doritos.

It shouldn't surprise readers here at CK when I call bullshit on a thought process like this. So I'm going to break out my calculator and do some math--and prove that we're actually "up against" something that's hilariously easy to resist.

The truth is, that $33 billion of food advertising spent annually in the USA works out to $107 per person per year.

You don't think you can resist $107 worth of annual advertising? Nine dollars a month? You're going to cry uncle and give away your ability to choose your own food in the face of nine bucks a month?

Are you so incapable of thinking for yourself that you'd willingly sell your power and your free will at that low a price?

Readers, share your thoughts!


Related Posts:
Prices, Zombies and the Advertising-Consumption Cycle
Ten Thoughts On the True Value of Brands
Told to Eat Its Vegetables, The New York Times Wrings Its Hands
How to Own the Consumer Products Industry--And I Mean Literally Own It
The Economics of Wasteful Foods
Stacked Costs and Second-Order Foods: A New Way to Think About Food Costs
A Reader Asks for Help


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
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This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Sauteed Penne with Broccoli and Chickpeas (August 2008)
You can make this healthy and laughably cheap recipe in well under 30 minutes. One of CK's most popular recipes, with some intriguing reader modification ideas in the comments.

Who Does the Cooking In Your Home? The Results May Surprise You (August 2010)
You'd think modern couples would be sharing duties in the kitchen more than ever these days. You'd be wrong.

The Economics of Wasteful Foods (August 2010)
Can you tell me why, as a society, we manufacture and sell "foods" like instant oats, pre-made guacamole, etc., that cost more and taste worse than anything you could make at home? Why do foods like this exist? Don't miss the various debate that erupted in the comments.

How To Eat More (August 2010)
In which I condense all of the food insights here at CK into one ironic post. Quite a few readers read this article literally and completely missed the point.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday August 26, 2011

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Thirteen tips for eating more compassionately. (Tiny Buddha)

Easy ways to adapt recipes for lower-calorie cooking. (Absolut(ly) Fit)

Nine surprising farm subsidy myths. (Environmental Working Group)

Is it unethical to give a homeless person a coupon for a free McDonald's hamburger? (Food Politics)

Recipe Links:
In season and creative: Fresh Corn Pancakes. (Closet Cooking)

No fooling around: This easy recipe is perfect for this time of year: Peach Lavender Fool. (Cafe Johnsonia)

Perfect New York-style Crumb Cake. (The Hungry Housewife)

Off-Topic Links:
This week's unsolicited book recommendation: Anne LaBastille's Woodswoman. A fascinating memoir about a woman who builds a cabin and lives on her own in New York's Adirondack mountains. An earnest and beautifully written book about feminism, the environment, and one of our country's oldest and largest national parks.

Is news really worthy? (Finer Minds)

"Money is the root of all evil" isn't just a misquote. It's also wrong. (The Simple Dollar)





Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retail Ninja Mind Tricks: Conclusions

Readers: this post wraps up my monster series on consumerism and the retail industry. I hope you've enjoyed it, and as always I live for your thoughts, comments and feedback.
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By now it should be painfully clear how our psychological biases can be exploited by the consumer products industry to get us to buy things we don't want or need. Look, if Budweiser can get us to associate bad beer with hot girls in bikinis, then--seriously--what can't they do? :)

And yes, plenty of companies make a living by taking advantage of our various cognitive foibles and blindspots. But let me make one point perfectly clear: I refuse to let my my readers wring their hands, whine, whimper, mewl, bitch, complain, shake their fists, or participate in any other acts of personal disempowerment because of the supposed power of the retail industry. I've made this statement many times here on this blog, but it bears repeating: Do not give your power away like that.

Instead, take action. Share this post series with others, start conversations about this subject, and educate the people around you about these concepts. Use your power.

Remember, no industry controls consumers. Instead, the exact opposite is true: We control all industries by deciding where and when we choose to spend our money. It is the height of disempowered hypocrisy for us to to complain about the consumer products industry when it merely sells us the products we consent to buy.

Again, don't give your power away. Instead, learn the game. Understand how things work--and that includes understanding how your own mind works. Be mindful of the mental foibles we have as consumers, and be even more mindful of how companies use those foibles to get us to buy more stuff.

For those readers perceptive enough to recognize their own psychological tendencies, what examples of psychological bias have affected your consumption and purchasing decisions in the past? Share in the comments so other readers can learn from your experiences!

I owe an enormous debt of thanks to Dan Gilbert's exceptional book Stumbling on Happiness, Nick Taleb's books Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan and Tal Ben-Shahar's book Happier for prompting me to think about many of the issues described in this series of posts.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retail Ninja Mind Trick #7: False Urgency

We enable the retail industry to create a false sense of urgency in our minds. It separates us from our money.

Today's post covers what is probably the most effective and subversive of all the ninja mind tricks consumers face. When retailers create a sense of urgency, bad things almost always happen.

To us, that is.

A few preliminary words on the semantics of the word "urgency"--after all, urgency isn't always a bad thing. If I'm gushing blood out of my carotid arteries, urgency can be a really good thing if it gets me in front of a competent ER doctor in time. Less dramatically, if I'm 100 pounds overweight and suffering health complications because of it, urgency here is yet another positive if it calls me to action to change my lifestyle.

However, when urgency is imposed on us in the retail world--especially in big-ticket retail--it usually calls us to action to buy things we don't need.

But why? Why place consumers in stressful, seemingly urgent situations?

Well, if there were no sense of urgency to buy things right now, hardly anybody would buy anything. Duh. The numbers are pretty compelling: if you have a customer who walks into your store, looks over your merchandise, and then leaves, the odds of him or her coming back and buying anything are practically zero.

And that's why salespeople will often start cutting deals the minute you make for the door.

Okay then. Right off the bat we've got one weapon that any empowered consumer can use to his or her advantage: get up and leave.

At best, you'll give yourself time to think through and decide if your purchase is really worth it--and save yourself from catching a whopping case of buyer's remorse afterwords. At worst, you'll unlock quick discounts from a salesperson who's scared you might walk out that door and disappear forever.

A related thought: What about those cheesy call-to-action phrases like "Hurry! Sale ends tomorrow!" or "Act fast--supplies are limited!" Modern, sophisticated consumers would never obey phony-sounding phrases like that, right? Those cliches can't possibly work on us any more, could they?

But then again, we consumers still do things like sleep out overnight to get our hands on the new iPhone. And we spend hundreds of millions of dollars after watching time-sensitive infomercials for things like Carleton Sheets' No Down Payment and P90X exercise DVDs.

Why? Essentially, because those phrases--as cheesy as they seem--still work. And the best retailers combine these phrases with other urgency-creating techniques (like creating the appearance of shortages, or simulating urgency with various discounting and couponing strategies and use other subtle techniques) to get us to buy. Now.

Rest assured, you are regularly tricked into feeling a false sense of urgency by many different types of industries, in many different circumstances.

Here's an idea. The next time you are about to make a big purchase... get up and leave. Give yourself time and space to think about it for a day or a month. Or a year. Defy the urgency. Remember, it's not like you're bleeding from your carotid arteries. If you still want the item, you can still buy it. Later. That car, boat, house, timeshare or Faberge egg will still be there waiting for you, right where you left it. And the price will probably still be the same. If not lower.

And the next time you see a sale about to end, or you're facing what seems to be an "opportunity" to make a big-ticket purchase at a seemingly temporary "sale" price, try this experiment: Let the sale end. Let some time pass, and again, if you still want the item, ask the salesperson or the manager to give you the discounted sale price.

You'll be shocked at how that sale didn't really end when you thought it ended.

Score one for the consumer.

Readers, what are your thoughts and reactions?

Next up: Conclusions


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
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This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

The Food Spending Poll: Results and Conclusions (August 2009)
I did an informal poll of readers to see what percent of our disposable income we spend on food. The results were, quite frankly, a shock.

Southern Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Collards (August 2009)
This recipe is one of the greatest examples of laughably cheap, ever: a healthy, hearty stew that weighs in at a preposterous 45c-65c a serving.

Countdown: Top Ten Low Alcohol Drinks (August 2008)
These beverages generally have 1/2 to 1/3 of the alcohol in a typical standard drink, so you can keep your head about you during a night on the town. Just like my Top Ten Alcoholic Drinks of Summer, and my Top Ten No-Alcohol Drinks, this post captures a ton of search traffic. Also, see the comments for a spirited debate on the exact components of a Shandy.

Turning a Bad Recipe Into a Good One: Lime and Chipotle Shrimp (August 2007)
Some recipes look great on paper, but suck in reality. Here are tips on how we took a recipe flop from Simply Recipes, made a few key modifications, and turned it into an amazing addition to our recipe collection.



How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday August 19, 2011

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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The most hilarious post on baking bread that has ever been written. Ever. (Cheap Healthy Good)

Obvious and insulting discrimination by the staff of Emeril Lagasse's show against the author of Daisy Cooks!--one of my all-time favorite Latin-American cookbooks. (Boriqua Blog)

One of my favorite food writers grapples with her anger at seeing Ronald McDonald at a food festival. Who am I to judge? (5 Second Rule)

Can I eat the calories I burned during exercise? (344 Pounds)

Recipe Links:
A stunning, four-ingredient Toblerone Ice Cream Cake, plus six other deadly desserts. (stonesoup)

Delicious, easy... and right in season: Roasted Tomato Soup. (Sprouted Kitchen)

A spectacular Grilled Chicken Satay recipe you can make in just 25 minutes. (Steamy Kitchen)

Off-Topic Links:
Most intellectual dishonesty is unintentional. Here's how to avoid it when disagreeing with someone. (Paul Graham)

How to be more lucky. (Barking Up the Wrong Tree)

When in doubt, say yes. Regret is painful. (Ben Casnocha)




Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retail Ninja Mind Trick #6: Rationalization and Justification

We rationalize and justify our purchases and our money mistakes without realizing it. The bigger the mistake, the more we rationalize it.

Look, we humans make lots of mistakes. Big ones, dumb ones--and once in a while, really big AND really dumb ones.

And, frankly, if we didn't make some effort to explain away our biggest, dumbest mistakes, our fragile psyches would collapse in the face of our profoundest stupidities. Even the most iron-willed of us would curl up into little balls and never leave the house.

That's just no way to live.

Fortunately, our brains have figured out how to make us feel better by using an entire bag of psychological tricks to help us play down--or even hide--all the dumb things we do.

And that's why that Soloflex machine we bought in a burst of optimism and fifteen easy payments of $99! somehow ends up collecting dust in a hard-to-see corner in our basement. Hey, who wants a daily reminder of both our waste and our laziness?

And that's why we convincingly tell our neighbors how much we love having that pool in our backyard, despite the hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars we spend each year maintaining it. Do we vividly remember that we only used it twice last year? Nope, not if we can help it. Instead, we'll vividly remember that it was an "investment" to improve the value of our home.

Of course there's a more pernicious form of rationalization/justification, in which we blame the government, "the system," George Bush, Alan Greenspan, Goldman Sachs--essentially anybody but ourselves--in order to protect our egos. Because that second home we bought at the top of the real estate market couldn't really be our fault.

Now, let's be fair: rationalization and justification have their advantages too. For one thing, they help keep the suicide rate below 100%.

The problem is, they also prevent us from accepting and learning from our mistakes. It's a whole lot easier to rationalize something than it is is to deeply grasp that we've committed a soul-shattering waste of time and money. And thus we fail to protect ourselves from our next gigantic dumb mistake, because we cannot learn from mistakes we rationalize away.

Here's the bottom line. When it comes to buying stuff, rationalization and justification are incredibly useful to the companies selling to us. Hey, if we keep making the same expensive mistakes over and over again, it keeps plenty of companies flush with plenty of our hard-earned money.

A few hints on handling this particular bias. First of all, just be sure to be very, very careful with all of your big-ticket purchases. Always remember one of the ugliest truths of psychology: the bigger the mistake, the more skillfully we'll rationalize it.

Therefore, reframe how you think about big-ticket purchases. Consider them mistakes until proven otherwise. Defer all of your big-ticket purchases until you are really sure you need and want them. Take some time to really roll them over in your mind, and to examine the emotions running underneath. Are you "too" excited to buy? Are events moving along where you think you or your significant other are getting pushed along towards buying something that you're not quite sure about?

You are completely within your rights to say "no," or "not yet" to any big-ticket spending decision. It's your money--you have the right to take as much time as you need. We'll go deeper into this in our next post.

Next up: False Urgency


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retail Ninja Mind Trick #5: Value and Discounting Biases

We are notoriously bad at estimating the value of things in the future, especially in the distant future. Also: Anybody who's ever purchased an extended warranty should re-read this post twice.

Back in the 1800s when I was a wide-eyed finance student getting my MBA at Columbia University, we had a surprisingly cute economics professor who one day in class held up a check for $100. She told us that this check was dated one year in the future, and that she was selling this future-dated check to whichever student made the highest bid.

For a few minutes we all sat there in confused silence, until I broke the spell and bid ten bucks.

Soon afterward, several other students caught on and I was quickly outbid. The bidding went to $40, $50, $75, $85, $90, $95... and finally one guy in our class idiotically bid $99 cash for a $100 check that he might get next year.

I think that guy later went on to work in mortgage-backed securities.

Okay, what's the point? The point is that money paid in the future is worth a lot less than money in your hot little hands today. It should also go without saying that a mere promise to pay you money in the future is worth hella lot less.

All of this explains why the insurance industry--which is in the business of taking money from you today in exchange for a promise to pay you if you experience a loss in the distant future--is hilariously profitable.

And yet insurance seems like such a mathematical, quantitatively-driven product, doesn't it? "I'd like one million dollars in life insurance coverage. How much will it cost?" And the friendly agent checks the book, quotes you a price and helpfully offers you a whole suite of investment products that he can wrap around his policy. All of which are designed to help "protect" you from what is really a highly emotional situation... triggered by the fear of your own death.

An extended warranty is just another form of insurance. The product you buy--whether it's a DVD player, a car or a that brand new blimp you've always wanted--will have some form of warranty already offered by the manufacturers. After all, they want to at least try and convince you that their product isn't defective right out of the gate. So you might get a three-year warranty on your car automatically. But then the dealer wants to sell you extended warranty coverage. He wants to sell you protection that doesn't even begin until year 4. And he wants in exchange a lump sum payment now.

Did you know that extended warranties are among the most profitable products sold at Best Buy? That a good conversion rate for extended warranty sales can have an enormous impact on an auto dealer's profitability?

What does this imply about the value you get as the consumer on the other side of this trade?

If you are ever asked to enter into an exchange of your money today in return for a promise of some amount of money in the future, be very very careful. You are most likely egregiously overpaying.

That's why I only bid $10 for my cute professor's check.

Next up: Rationalization and Justification


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
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This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Stacked Costs and Second-Order Foods: A New Way to Think About Food Costs (August 2008)
One of the most popular and influential posts in Casual Kitchen's history, and part of my early efforts to apply my financial analyst background toward helping consumers get the most value out of the food they buy. This article explains the true nature of food costs, and it will help you slash your food bill.

Navy Bean and Kielbasa Soup (August 2008)
Right in the middle of the most humble cookbook I own was the most simple and delicious soup ever. This easy-to-make recipe costs a laughable 77c a serving.

How to Make Creole-Style Coffee (August 2009)
Use the rich, smoky sweetness of a secret ingredient to turn your regular cup of morning java into something truly special.

Bread Knife Giveaway and 20 Bread Recipes (August 2009)
Skip the dumb knife giveaway and read the comments to this post, where you'll find a huge list of at least twenty amazing bread recipes shared by CK readers. If you don't have time to go through all twenty, here are six top favorites culled from the list.

Let That Other Guy Pay! Saving Money in Two-Sided Markets (August 2009)
The "two-sided market" is a peculiar feature of the modern consumer-driven economy, and it offers savvy consumers surprising opportunities to save boatloads of money.

Road Eats Secrets: How to Find the Best Local Food When You're On the Road (August 2010)
Finding interesting and high-quality food on the road is frustrating, takes up precious travel time, and is generally more difficult than it should be. Here are out secrets to getting the best road eats, no matter where you are.


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday August 12, 2011

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Think that Tropicana Pure Premium is really 100% pure juice? Then how can every carton possibly taste exactly the same? (Food Renegade) From the author of Squeezed.

Twelve high-protein alternative to meat. (Dietriffic) Bonus Post: Six ways to boost your metabolism.

Have you ever wondered where the idea of the standard 2,000 calorie diet came from? (Food Politics)

How to keep your knives sharp. (Beyond Salmon)

Recipe Links:
An easy summer favorite you can make in under 30 minutes: Pasta with Zucchini and Mushrooms. (Very Culinary)

Laughably easy and intriguing: Stir Fry Chick Peas. (Quay Po Cooks, via Chow & Chatter)

A simple homemade Three Olive Tapenade. (For The Love of Cooking)

Off-Topic Links:
Why it's easier than ever to negotiate that 6% real estate commission. (Consumerism Commentary)

Getting over yourself. (Dana Richardson)

How did we go from Thoreau to our reckless self-absorbed culture of today--in barely 100 years? (Grant McCracken)





Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retail Ninja Mind Trick #4: Habituation

Most of our purchases are mindless and habit-based rather than mindful and considered. Therefore, branded products companies know that once they've got us habitually buying their products, well, they've got us.

In prior posts here at Casual Kitchen, I've talked about how easy it is for consumers to settle into buying a specific brand of each of the various products they use.

And it's totally okay to settle into some habitual purchasing decisions. Honestly, if we spent time deeply considering every purchase, we'd never make it out of the grocery store. I'd still be in there deciding between 45 brands of shampoo. And I don't even have that much hair.

The problem is, if we are too habit-based, the company behind that brand can easily take advantage of us. They can put in stealth price hikes that we don't notice. They can gradually raise the price of their brand until it reaches a premium far beyond what it's really worth. Heck, they can stop making their product entirely and choose to outsource that product to the same factory that makes the nearly identical generic brand sitting next to it on the store shelf.

Over the course of a lifetime, a pattern of habitual and passive purchasing decisions will needlessly separate us from thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of our hard-earned dollars. That's why from time to time it's an excellent practice to reconsider the value of each of the brands you buy. An empowered consumer will occasionally look over the prices of competing products--including store brands--and ask: does the brand I normally buy provide value to me commensurate with any premium in price?

If it doesn't, you know exactly what to do: Drop that brand instantly.

One final thought: the laughably pretentious assumption that certain brands "say something about us" is just another form of habituation. It is also, coincidentally, deeply in the interests of consumer products companies for us to think this way.

After all, being pretentious can be habit-forming too.

Next up: Value and Discounting Biases


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retail Ninja Mind Trick #3: False Comparisons and False Expertise

When making major purchases, we often make false comparisons or fixate on irrelevant details and distinctions.

Imagine wandering into your local Best Buy to look at new televisions. What information will help you make the best decision?

Well, once you're in the store, there's an entire encyclopedic universe of things to know: Plasma, LCD, or projection? Which aspect ratio should I pick? What resolution do I need? Is the 70-inch screen best, or should I go big-time and get the 126-incher? Is the contrast ratio going to be high enough? The store's incredibly helpful salespeople will patiently answer all of our questions and share all sorts of information.

But this is all proxy information, obscuring a much more important fact that is completely counter to your interests as a consumer. No one in this store is going to help you decide whether to buy a TV.

Instead, we learn about differences that make no difference. The salesperson can tell us about some quantum color adjustment feature that makes the Panasonic TV's picture better than the Sony's picture. We never knew this difference existed, and quite frankly it matters only in a direct side-by-side comparison in the store. And of course once we get our new TV into our living room, any specific visual memory we might have of that difference will fade, replaced by vague self-reinforcing thoughts like, "Oh, yeah, the picture on the Panasonic was way better."

And yet this might very well be the key deciding factor on which TV we choose. Hey, it seemed really important at the time.

Buried in here is the fact that all these seemingly important distinctions displace questions that actually are important: Do I really need a new TV in the first place? Is this TV really going to be that much better than the three TVs I already own? Or most fundamentally of all: Does watching TV at all add any value to my life?

One final point. If you:

1) fancy yourself an expert on the subtleties of large screen TVs,
2) deeply understand the various moisture-wicking properties of Under Armour vs. Nike vs. lululemon sportwear,
3) are conversant in the key distinctions between iPhones, Blackberrys and Droids,
4) have an intimate understanding of whether oak, bamboo, cork or vinyl is a superior flooring material,
5) have mastered the use of the iPad and all of its subtleties,
etc.,
etc.,
etc.,

Then I have question for you:

Are these things that you know actually important?

Nope. Instead, an entire universe of knowledge has been created for you--in order to make you more ignorant.

Next up: Habituation


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retail Ninja Mind Trick #2: Hedonic Adjustment

Once you "get used" to luxury products and luxury brands, you're finished. Also, our joy in new purchases quickly wears off.

When I was growing up, I used to think that Hershey's chocolate was good stuff. Of course, once I discovered Lindt dark chocolate, well, the rest was history. I never went back.

Likewise, once I discovered Ben & Jerry's ice cream, I just couldn't go back to that old Sealtest brand my family ate back when I was a kid.

Now, most of you would argue that the incremental costs of good chocolate and good ice cream are minimal, and it's worth it to pay up for good stuff. I suspect most of you would also qualify that statement by saying "it's worth it--up to a point."

Which brings us to big-ticket and huge-ticket items. A simple and particularly expensive example: The difference between a high-end car and a regular, good-quality Honda can mean tens of thousands of dollars' worth of incremental payments over that car's loan period. And if you start buying high-end luxury cars early on in your life, you'll most likely "never go back"--just like I never went back to Sealtest ice cream.

Therefore, practicing this particular form of hedonic adjustment over the course of your entire driving life can mean pissing away several hundred thousand dollars.

That's why I feel pity and compassion when I see a twenty-something driving an expensive car. A young person who's hedonically adjusted to a high-end car will never be able to backtrack. To him, the idea of driving a Honda for seven years instead of leasing a new BMW every 24 months would be laughable. And vaguely humiliating.

And it should be no surprise that this bias plays right into the hands of the auto industry--and it will separate this poor kid from a substantial portion of his life's personal wealth.

It gets worse. The pleasure we get from making new purchases tends to wear off very quickly. Which, conveniently, makes us want to buy still more stuff. Thus not only has our hypothetical BMW driver hedonically adjusted to his high-quality car, he's also hedonically adjusted to the idea of paying for a new one on a regular basis.

And he doesn't know it yet, but he's also adjusting to an entire universe of other expensive purchases that he'll need to make in order to have an internally consistent lifestyle. An automotive Diderot Effect, if you will.

Normally, I'd encourage readers to reconsider the nature of the "happiness" they get from many of these purchases in the first place. You know intellectually that it's not real happiness, and you know, thanks to hedonic adjustment, that it can't last. So why do we make these purchases in the first place?

It's easy for CK readers to think through this question carefully and consistently, because they value their wallets over voracious consumerism. But have you talked about this subject with normal, regular people? These questions and these ideas draw at best uncomprehending stares--and at worst viscerally negative reactions. Quite frankly, it's a question the average person can't really process.

Why? Because--once again--buried deeply within these ideas is a tacit understanding that the traditional, modern, urbane consumerist life is fundamentally... empty.

Nobody likes being told they live a fundamentally empty life. Yeah. Better not think about that. Hey, why not go buy a little something to brighten my day instead?

Next up: False Comparisons and False Expertise


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retro Sundays

I created the Retro Sundays series to help newer readers easily navigate the very best of this blog's enormous back catalog of content. Each Retro Sundays column serves up a selection of the best articles from this week in history here at Casual Kitchen.

As always, please feel free to explore CK's Recipe Index, the Best Of Casual Kitchen page and my full Index of Posts. You can also receive my updates at Twitter.
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This Week in History at Casual Kitchen:

Avoiding the "Yes, But" Vortex (August 2010)
Where I discuss an important complaint script that repeatedly shows up in reader comments--not just here at CK, but in almost all food blogs. I was extremely proud of this post, and writing helped me process and organize a lot of my own thinking about the psychology of excuse-making.

A Question of Food Quality (August 2009)
When I wrote my highly controversial post Guess What? We Spend Less Then Ever on Food, one reader suggested that the quality of food today is meaningfully worse than it was in our grandparents' era. What's your take?

Spreading the New Frugality: A Manifesto (August 2009)
If there was ever a time for the frugal lifestyle to go viral, with all of the financial and environmental side benefits that accrue with it, it's right now. This post is even more relevant today than when it first ran back in '09.

Sauteed Penne with Broccoli and Chickpeas (August 2008)
A quick, delicious and healthy meal, perfect for when you don't have time to cook. With a bit of practice you make it in under 20 minutes.

Doing Your Favorite Thing: How to Spend Exactly the Right Amount of Money For an Important Celebration (August 2008)
Have you ever noticed how there's often a shockingly low correlation between what you spend on celebrating something and the actual value you get from that celebration? One of my early efforts at exploring mindful consumption here at CK.

Cajun Meatloaf (August 2007)
Once you try this recipe, from my all-time favorite Cajun-Creole cookbook, you'll look at meatloaf in a whole new way. Possibly the single least healthy recipe in all of CK's Recipe Index, but also one of the most profoundly delicious.





How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

CK Friday Links--Friday August 5, 2011

Here's yet another selection of interesting links from around the internet. As always, I welcome your thoughts and your feedback.

PS: Follow me on Twitter!
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Breaking down the dumbest myths of organic farming. (Scientific American) Bonus Posts: Histrionic and defensive responses, respectively, from Mother Jones and Grist.

How to grow amazing herbs for next to nothing. (A Little Bit Of Spain In Iowa)

What to expect when you try to pass a soda tax law. Read critically. (Accidental Hedonist)

Think you're helping by eating only the "correct" fish? Think again. (New York Magazine)

Recipe Links:
Perfect for using up all that fresh in-season produce: Garden Vegetable Chili. (Make and Takes, via Cafe Johnsonia)

Hilariously easy: Spicy Roasted Chickpeas. (Chow and Chatter)

Make your own perfect Homemade Pickles! (Foodie With Family)

Off-Topic Links:
How to live on practically nothing. Please check your excuses at the door. (WikiHow)

An oblivious Iowa town shuts down a little girl's lemonade stand because she hadn't obtained a permit and a health inspection. (The Blaze)

What is "intermittent reinforcement" and why does it annihilate our creativity and productivity? (Jonathan Fields)


Do you have an interesting article or recipe that you'd like to see featured in Casual Kitchen's Food Links? Send me an email!


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

Retail Ninja Mind Trick #1: Association

Retailers create powerful and artificial associations for us--without us even knowing it.

Why do 50-something men buy red sports cars? Why do 30-something women buy $1,000 pairs of shoes? And why do teenagers demand a specific brand of clothes and refuse to wear anything else?

Because these products and these brands somehow make us feel a certain way. A red sports car symbolizes youth, vitality and hair. A pair of $1,000 shoes symbolizes sexiness, strength--and bunion surgery. A certain brand of jeans can be the difference between a teenager sitting with the cool kids and sitting with the band geeks (extra credit for any reader who can guess which group I sat with).

But why do these things carry powerful associations? They're just things, right? How is that they can make us feel anything?

Well, partly, it's because life as we know it is kind of ... empty. We have to work really hard to make life meaningful, and because most of us spend almost all of our time looking after our stuff, our careers, our mortgages and our kids, there's so little time left over that many of us find ourselves taking shortcuts to a meaningful and happy life. So we buy things that represent "meaning" to us.

But here's the thing: who decides these associations? Who creates them and who gives them meaning--to the point where people will even choose their friends based on a brand of pants?

Hint: if you actually think you decide, you're already doomed. Don't bother reading any more of this series.

Next up: Hedonic Adjustment


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!

How to Defeat the Retail Industry's Ninja Mind Tricks

If there's one truth about humanity, it's this: we are products of cognitive and psychological bias. And our biases often trip up our minds in unexpected and costly ways.

And it's funny: by some odd coincidence, certain industries--namely, the retail industry, the consumer products industry and the food industry--have become exceptionally skilled at using our own worst biases against us.

It turns out that this highly convenient "coincidence" not only affects our consumption decisions, it also directly affects our financial wealth, our perceived status among our peers, even our personal happiness and satisfaction with our lives.

If we let it, of course.

That's why empowered consumers must have some working knowledge of the most common forms of cognitive and psychological bias. More importantly, we should also understand exactly how these biases are used by marketers and advertisers when they sell us the stuff we buy.

As consumers, we have an obligation to fight back and think for ourselves, rather than allow ourselves to be misled. And in this upcoming post series, I'm going to walk through several of the most important biases we face as consumers. Biases that cause us to spend more of our hard-earned money than we want to, that cause us to misjudge value, or that cause us to take action when we shouldn't.

A quick side-note to readers: This post was originally a 4,000-word monstrosity that would have shattered all records at Casual Kitchen for post length. That was before I decided to have mercy on my readers and break it down into a multi-part series. Just be warned that for the next couple of weeks the post frequency will increase to two articles a week, with a new post running every Tuesday and an extra post on Wednesday. As always, I live for your comments and feedback.

Finally, I invite you to share how you've learned to counteract each of the biases we discuss. What ideas and solutions work best for you? By sharing your thoughts on any of the upcoming posts, you too can help the thousands of readers here at CK become more savvy and more aware consumers.

Tomorrow I'll start with a brief post on the most subversive (and expensive) bias of all: Association.

Finally, here's the entire archive of articles in this series:

Retail Ninja Mind Trick #1: Association
Retail Ninja Mind Trick #2: Hedonic Adjustment
Retail Ninja Mind Trick #3: False Comparisons and False Expertise
Retail Ninja Mind Trick #4: Habituation
Retail Ninja Mind Trick #5: Value and Discounting Biases
Retail Ninja Mind Trick #6: Rationalization and Justification
Retail Ninja Mind Trick #7: False Urgency
Retail Ninja Mind Tricks: Conclusions


How can I support Casual Kitchen?
If you enjoy reading Casual Kitchen, tell a friend and spread the word! You can also support me by purchasing items from Amazon.com via links on this site, or by linking to me or subscribing to my RSS feed. Finally, you can consider submitting this article, or any other article you particularly enjoyed here, to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg or stumbleupon. Thank you for your support!