Do this exercise before you read on: pick out 5 grocery items you’ll need but have never tried before (e.g. a new brand/kind of jam or peanut butter, detergent or shampoo), take a picture of them, and take notes of what it is about each item that attracted your attention.
* One student from this class did a similar exercise–first by herself and then with two of her acquaintances–and presented her findings and insightful reflections in one of her projects.
A growing body of research has shown that heuristics play a huge role in individuals’ food decisions.
Which heuristic-rules affect a given individual’s food decisions have largely to do with subtle, unreflected, and often unnoticed contextual influences.
This makes us vulnerable to manipulations by, say, marketing strategists who are knowledgeable about the power of heuristics, especially in the age of “Post-Truth Food.” (To think critically about many health-related issues, with respect to which unverified and yet consequential claims/myths often rule public discourse, check out this BBC One “The Truth About …” series.)
Other things being equal, you feel gravitated toward items with descriptors like “natural,” right? If so, you’d better read “What is ‘Natural’ Food?”, which talks about FDA’s effort to solicit public input on the definition of ‘natural,’ and this commentary on the anticipated new FDA definition.
- A common example of a natural ingredient is “natural flavor.” But what, technically speaking, qualifies something for that? Is it really better than “artificial flavor”? Well, you can read this FDA definition, a nice unpacking of which can be found here. And here is a Marketplace segment on the subject (although the segment is from 2015, the gist of it still applies):