But what happens when what we want isn’t good for us? Or downright harmful?

One example I thought of comes from the food world. 

Many of our favorite things—Girl Scout Thin Mints, potato chips, Coca-Cola, Reese’s Cups—were engineered in a lab by a bunch of guys in white coats for one purpose. To be hyperpalatable—hitting our taste buds in all the right ways to make us eat more, crave more, and buy more. 

The problem is this: these things are designed to be easy to eat in massive quantities and to play on the chemical reactions in our brains to make us want them more and more all the time!

Now, they would argue that they’re just “giving people what they want”. Meeting market demand. And there’s some truth to that. 

If they suddenly went back to using more natural, rather than chemical, ingredients, customers would notice. We’d hate it… and probably get REALLY upset with these companies too.

 If they made them less cravable, crunchable, salty, delicious—they would be more like fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, and other whole, mostly unprocessed foods. 

Now, those real foods taste great, but they don’t have the same impact on our taste buds and brains as do our packaged foods. There’s just no comparison. 

Which is why it’s hard to make the switch. An apple just doesn’t taste as good as a Thin Mint. (Believe me, I’m speaking from experience here). 

But again, the problem occurs when these things take over our lives, causing massive health issues like diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, and others. And we can’t stop ourselves because our brains are being played on directly—it all just tastes so damn good!

Now, I’m not saying the government needs to get involved in things like this. Or that people need to be told what and what not to eat. I’m simply asking a question:

How do we embrace a free market system, a “give the people what they want” system, when what we often want is terrible for us? 

Is there a good solution? Probably not. They all come with downsides, some of them quite severe. 

Such is life in the 21st Century.

***As an aside, let me be clear: there are no good foods and bad foods. Don’t put labels on your stuff like that. There’s no quicker way to drive yourself nuts than to do that. Think of your foods on a continuum from “Eat More” to “Eat Less”. 

Unless you like to eat dryer lint or chug anti-freeze, there probably isn’t anything you should put in a “Don’t Eat” category. 

The purpose of today’s post was more philosophical: an exercise in mindfulness on my part.