212_Is Choice Overload the Bane of Our Existence

Adventures in Sustainable Living Podcast

Episode 212

Is Choice Overload the Bane of Our Existence?

The only chips I purchase on a regular basis is tortilla chips. It is because I make my own salsa. But when I go to the supermarket, there are literally 15 different brands of tortilla chips. But the same is true with so many other things that we deal with everyday.  From supermarket food choices, to menu options, to the clothes we wear, to what insurance to purchase, and even our health care options. There is always an over abundance of choices.

But is this a good or a bad thing? Does it improve how we eat? Does it influence how we take care of ourselves? Are we more or less likely to develop good or bad habits because we have so many choices. Does it make us more or less sustainable?

So join me for E212 Is Choice Overload the Bane of Our Existence

Welcome back everyone to the Adventures in Sustainable Living podcast. This is your host Patrick and this is E212 Is Choice Overload the Bane of Our Existence?

What I want to accomplish in this episode is to discuss the over abundance of choices that we have in our modern culture, why and how that happened, and whether or not it is a good thing. But on the other side of that coin is having fewer choices. The question of course is which situation tends to promote healthier and more sustainable behavior? But what I also want to do is relate this to some real life stories in order to put it all into a down-to-earth perspective and show how each end of the spectrum produces a much different result.

But before we get started, let’s talk about the good news story of the week.

Good News Story of the Week

This weeks good news story comes out of the United Kingdom. It is about three children that received the “best Christmas present ever.”

A woman named Sarah Lackey, has a daughter named Tilly that lost both of her hands due to a bout with meningitis. Tilly later received two bionic arms from the Open Bionics Foundation. Every year the mother and daughter team now host a fundraising campaign, called the Big Hero Three, which selects three random children across the UK to receive a prosthetic made by the Open Bionics Foundation.

The Foundation says their bionic arms that advanced, intuitive, robust and light and are the world’s most affordable advanced multi-grip prosthetic arm.

This year the big Hero 3 campaign raised 20K pounds. Two other charitable organizations, along with an anonymous donor, made up the remaining $40K pounds required for three children to receive the prosthetics. The three children received them on December 12th for what will probably be the best Christmas present ever.

So, this weeks round of applause goes to the Big 3 Hero fundraising campaign in the United Kingdom for their amazing accomplishments.

Now let’s move on to this weeks episode.

Perhaps at times I tend to over romanticize how I grew up. But the reality is that my life as a kid was very simple and rather uneventful.  My parents were hard working and we lived in a small house. I have no memory of ever really doing without anything. We had all that we needed but it was a rare when there any display of extravagance because for the most part it did not exist. In retrospect, I see now that a lot of things were done out of necessity and not because we had an over abundance of choices.

But one bonus in particular was that my mother was a fabulous and very creative cook. Our meals were always healthy. Vegetables were plentiful and almost always home canned. We had farm raised beef and chicken and we ate well. However, the reality is that my mother’s menu only had two options. Take it or leave it.

On occasion we were bold enough to object to her choice of menu. When we did, her response was typically one of three things.  If you don’t like it you will just sit there until you eat it anyway. If you don’t eat it you will wear it. Or, if you don’t eat it now, I will be happy to warm up for breakfast.

There was only one occasion that I can recall that we staged a general revolt. All four of us refused to eat what she had cooked for dinner. We all sat at the table for three hours refusing to eat and she finally gave in. We all went without dinner that evening and went to bed hungry. But if my memory serves me correctly, my mother never tried to make us eat liver and onions ever again.

The end result of being raised like this is that I cook at lot of homemade meals. Although I am not particular about what I eat, especially when I travel, I do prefer homemade meals over restaurant food. If I travel to a place where there are limited options, I make due with what is available and get creative. I realized long ago that you can’t alway get what you want and sometimes you have to make due.

Annette’s son Erik was fortunate to grow up with two people who like to travel. He was able to experience several different cultures, live in a couple of different countries, climb volcanos in Costa Rica, kayak in the Amazon and learn how to scuba dive. As an adult he is very independent, flexible in his choices and is not too particular about much of anything.

However, cultivating that sort of attitude in him was not necessarily easy. When you grow up in the land of plenty, aka a developed country, you get accustomed to all the available choices and always having what you want.

The first time we took him to Costa Rica, there was major drama at a restaurant because there were limited options. He wanted something that was not on the menu. I tried to explain that he could not have it because they don’t even have that here. The drama came soon thereafter. He finally gave in and ordered pasta then got sick from food poisoning the next day. That of course didn’t help. 

However, that was truly the beginning of him learning you can’t always have what you want especially when you travel. Additionally, these kinds of experiences taught him to appreciate what he had and not take anything for granted. I would often tell him that there are a lot of people in the world that had a whole lot less than him. But he never truly appreciated that until he learned that lesson first hand. That happened when we traveled to villages in the Amazon basin and he saw people living in homemade huts with dirt floors. Much of the time they subsisted on hunting, fishing and what they gathered from the jungle.

But to take this one step further, I want to share another story that illustrates two extremely different  perspectives. This story was shared by a good friend of mine in Arizona while we were having lunch one day.

That morning he had met up with some friends that were missionaries in South Africa. That had come back home to visit family and had brought with them a young girl they had adopted. They were sitting in a restaurant having lunch and this young girl was not yet eating. She was looking around the restaurant staring at everyone. When asked if anything was wrong she asked, “So people here get to eat more than once a day?”

When he left the restaurant he immediately got a call from another friend who happened to be the owner of a different local restaurant. He invited him for lunch. Having just eaten he agreed to meet at the restaurant for a drink. While visiting with the owner one of the patrons became unreasonably angry over the fact that he had received a baked potato with his meal instead of French fries. He wanted to go into the kitchen and fight with the cook. This patron was so out of control that the police had to be called and he was removed from the property.

Now these are two completely different perspectives. One young girl was astounded that people had the choice to eat more than once a day. The other guy was so obliviously entitled that he was blind to the fact that you may not always get what you want. He couldn’t conceive of life being any different. Obviously he did not grow up with a mother like mine.

My whole point here is when you grow up in the land of plenty, and always have exactly what you want, you start feeling entitled to always have what you want. If your choices became limited you become frustrated and angry. This was painfully obvious to me during and after the pandemic when a great number of people were behaving badly simply because they could not have what they wanted.

So, what we see in our current culture is that we constantly have an over abundance of choices. But it wasn’t always that way. So, as I always like to ask, how did that happen?

Globalization, free trade and advances in technology have all lead to increase competition. This market situation drives businesses to offer more diverse product lines to attract customers. As consumers become more educated and affluent, they demand more options to satisfy their diverse tastes and lifestyle. The internet and social media have made it easier for consumers to access information about products and services, leading to increased expectations and increased choices.

Improvements in manufacturing, packaging, and distribution have enabled companies to produce and deliver a greater variety of products, further expanding the range of choices. Marketing and advertising tactics have lead to consumers feeling as if they are missing out on something which causes them to explore more options.

All of these factors, as well as several others, have contributed to a proliferation of choices in our modern culture, especially in markets such as consumer goods, services such as travel, entertainment and healthcare, and of course the over abundance of online marketplaces.

But do we really need 50 different kinds of chips, 12 different kinds of refried beans, 30 different kinds of pasta, etc. Furthermore, you have to question if having so many choices is actually in our best interest. Would we make healthier, more sustainable choices if we had fewer available? Would we lead better lives if we did not suffer from choice overload? Are there actually detrimental affects of having too many choices?

As it turns out, choice overload affects us in several different ways.

For example, let’s look at our sustainable behavior. When people are faced with numerous sustainable options, they start to suffer from decision fatigue. This tends to reduce their motivation for making any sort of sustainable choice and they may default to something less sustainable.

Sometimes the sheer number of choices creates too much complexity. People have difficulty comprehending the benefits and trade-offs of each choice and may abandon the decision-making process altogether.

Having too many choices creates a lack of clear guidance. Consequently, people may struggle to make informed decisions regarding sustainable options. Again, this may cause them to default to choices that are less sustainable.

Having too many sustainable options also leads to dissatisfaction. Once a choice is made, people may begin to doubt the first choice and thus become dissatisfied. That dissatisfaction can lead to decreased commitment to continue with sustainable behaviors. Additionally, being presented with too many options causes people to default to the status quo, which is typically something less sustainable.

Another good example of choice overload is our food choices. 

There is some evidence to suggest that having fewer food choices may lead to people eating healthier alternatives. For example, one research project determined that people with fewer choices for meal planning, e.g. 10 to 15 options, were more likely to eat a balance diet compared to those with more options, e.g. 25 to 30 options. 

Additionally, having fewer choices can reduce impulse buying. With fewer choices individuals tend to make more thoughtful and intentional purchases instead of relying on emotions. Research on the impact of food variety on eating behavior suggests that the more choices we have the more likely we are to over consume and make poor dietary choices.

Furthermore, imposed dietary restrictions, such as limited caloric consumption, tends to promote mindful eating. With dietary restrictions people tend to focus on calorie dense foods. People reported eating more fruits and vegetables and fewer foods loaded with sugar.

But just to be fair, most studies regarding our food choices never make any conclusive statement about  whether people will eat better when they have fewer choices. However, let’s look at this from a slightly different perspective.

In the past, people had limited access to processed and packaged foods, which are often higher in sugar, salt, and fat. Diets heavy in processed foods are associated with increased risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

In traditional societies, people had to rely on whole, unprocessed foods, such as fruits, vegetables, grains, lean meats and fish. These foods are rich in essential nutrients, fiber, and antioxidants which are the very things that help prevent chronic diseases.

Research has further shown that such a diet tends to have better nutritional profiles, with a higher intake of essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, and lower intake of sugar, saturated fats, and salt. Also in the past, marketing and advertising, which influences our food choices, was less prevalent. Consequently, we had less exposure to unhealthy food options.

Finally, close examination of specific examples of hunter/gatherer societies also provides some valuable insight. Their diet is typically meat based and has a better nutrient profile relative to our modern diet. But they also have almost no heart disease and have lower rates of chronic diseases compared to modern societies despite having limited access to healthcare.

It is impossible of course to generalize across all traditional societies, but findings such as these suggest that people may have been healthier when there were fewer dietary choices.

The challenge that we experience with having so many choices is that it leads to choice overload, decision fatigue and dissatisfaction. It also leads to overwhelming complexity and even increased expectations for customization and personalization.

Now don’t get we wrong. Having lots of choices does have advantages. But ultimately it also reflects a very dynamic interplay between economic, social, and psychological factors as well as modern technological advances.

How to Avoid Choice Overload

But when it comes to making everyday choices there are techniques you can use to reduce choice overload. For example:

-When searching for any given product, narrow the attributes you are using to make that choice down to 2 to 3 key attributes.

-Set parameters: Limit the amount of time you are willing to spend making a decision on any given purchase.

Prioritize: Set specific priorities that you can focus on to make your decision.

-Limit your options: Especially when shopping online, limit your options to 10 to 15 different products.

-Dominant options: Limit your options to the more popular or more highly regarded products. Looking at product reviews will help with this process.

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity

In my mind it all comes down to three things, simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. Everyone always has the impression that it is more expensive to live sustainably. But that is simply not true. And I get reminded of this every time I travel.

For example, I just recently took a temporary job in the US Virgin Islands. Once there, it took me about a week to figure out how to make my life function. But I’ve done this sort of thing numerous times so this is truly nothing new. My experience there was consistent with other places I’ve worked.

Once I am on the ground, my first priority is to locate sources for all the basic services in order to make my life work. Things such as fresh water, food, financial institutions such as banks, gas stations and options for getting around. Then I figure out what types of foods are available and how I can best cook for myself.

With a few exceptions, everywhere I have been you can go into the local supermarkets and still find your typical American products. For example, pre-made packaged meals, instant foods, baking mixes, sandwich meats, imported milk, meat and eggs. However, they tend to be much more expensive.

By far the best thing for me to do is go local and stick to the basics. I make homemade bread, soups, salads, fruit bowls out of local produce, and I purchase local meat and fish. And a lot of what I purchase in the way of fruits, vegetables and meat comes from local farmers. In many cases what I purchase is even less expensive than products I find at home in Colorado.

No matter where I have traveled, I eat healthy meals on a regular basis, lots of fruits and vegetables, and everything is organic. Although my choices are typically limited. But I must also point out that I have been very happy with these types of experiences. This is because my point of going to a new place is to meet new people, make new friends, experience a new culture and learn something new. And at the same time, do it as inexpensively as possible. But once again, I want to emphasize that often times my choices for making my life function in places where I have worked are typically very limited which is not necessarily a bad thing.

But as far as our diets are concerned, I think it is of value to look at where we have ended up as a result of all the choices we have.

Due to changes in our social structure, home dynamics, and perhaps even due to economic prosperity, nearly 70 years ago our culture started consuming more highly processed foods and even fast foods. The end result is that we consume more energy dense foods high in fats and sugars. We tend to consume more calories than we burn. In addition to that, most modern jobs no longer require physical labor and we rely more on mechanized means of transportation.

A perfect example of how corporations have taken advantage of this trend is the fast food industry.  A couple of the early fast food chains popularized the idea of standardized, inexpensive meals. Coupled with changes in household dynamics and an increased desire for convenience foods, the fast food industry began to boom.

Fast forward until now, nearly 40% of us eat fast food on any given day. If you are a fast food fan you are likely familiar with the question of “Would you like to upsize that?” Or “Would you like fries with that?” And of course we have an over abundance for our choice of fast food.

As you could likely guess, our tendency to eat fast food has lead to numerous health problems. I have often wondered, in the interest of our health, why fast food restaurants don’t ask “Would you like to downsize that?” Or “Would you like to save 30% on your calories today by ordering a veggie wrap instead?”

I think by now you get my point. Too many choices is not necessarily a good thing and it does not tend to promote sustainable behavior.

Sustainability tip of the week

Now I want to close out this episode with the sustainability tip of the week. And this weeks tip goes right along with this episode. But the question I want to pose is this. Is it difficult to live sustainably?

The easy answer is no it is not difficult. However, it is a lifestyle choice just like anything else. But when you live in a society and culture where ease, convenience, over consumption and relentless consumerism is the norm, it is sometimes difficult to make sustainable choices.

That said, it is obvious that more and more people are demanding access to sustainable products.Truly our consumer choices drive the market place and businesses are recognizing that people want to move toward sustainability. Consequently, sustainable choices are now becoming easier if for no other reason than the fact that more and more choices are now available.

My best advice is to keep it simple. There is so much information out there at this point, and so many sustainable products, that it is once again difficult to choose the right thing to do. To make things easier and simpler choose one simple thing at a time, focus on that one thing until it is an everyday part of your life then move on to something else.

By far and away the default setting I have for my life is simplicity. That is why I live how and where I do and choose to work the way I do. Yes I could choose so many other things. I could have so many other personal possessions. But all of these things just make my life even more complicated. That is why I choose simplicity and enjoy traveling to places with limited choices.

Well folks that’s about it for this week. I truly hope you have enjoyed this episode and will join me again next week. Until then, always remember to live sustainably because this is how we build a better future.