The Overwhelm of Excessive Choice!

I needed to go to the supermarket earlier today, because we were running low on a number of different things. Natural enough, right?

On my expedition, I found myself in the breakfast cereal aisle, looking for something as simple as oatmeal. Well, turned out that wasn't as simple as you might think!

Strangely enough, finding just plain oatmeal was a bit of a challenge. It seems that manufacturers want to sell us flavored oatmeal or oatmeal with dried fruit in it or instant oatmeal or pre-sweetened oatmeal or something else that makes oatmeal fancier than just plain old oatmeal.

I happen to like my oatmeal plain, so I can add my own extras, if I want to.

I've noticed this to be a bit of a trend with all kinds of foods, from salad dressing to coffee and beyond. And, sadly, offering up these many different versions also seems to be an excuse for the manufacturers to dial up their prices a couple of notches.

Not long after, I was over on the aisle where they sell snacks and crackers. Or "biscuits" as they might be called in the UK. Much the same held true here particularly as it applies to Cheez-Its which happens to be my wife's favorite snack.

No, Cheez-Its are not some newfangled invention, in fact they were first marketed in 1921. The nice thing about them is that they still have virtually no fancy ingredients with six syllable names you don't understand.

Except, I then discovered that finding just original plain Cheez-Its was all about impossible. It seems that are ridiculous number of new variations and flavors have been invented, I'm pretty sure most of them in the last decade or so. Up until that point people were perfectly content with just regular old cheez-its.

To be honest, I found it a bit overwhelming and even distressing having to look through all these different boxes and eventually coming to the frustrating conclusion that there were no original Cheez-Its on the shelf!

What is perhaps mildly noteworthy here is that we have tried a number of those new variations, and none of them are actually as good as the original. Which leaves me to the somewhat distressing conclusion that many people are more interested in whether something is new than whether it's actually good.

Over the past decade or so, I've seen this sort of thing happen with a lot of different products. As often as not, the new variation turns out to not be as good as the original, but it does give the manufacturer the opportunity to mark up the price by 10% by calling something "new and improved."

Maybe I'm just old and cynical, but I feel like this is largely due to the obsession with money and profits. In most cases, people are perfectly happy without all these excessive choices... many of which end up disappearing again after a few months/years. Anyone remember "New Coke?"

If it's not broken, don't try to "fix" it!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great remainder of your week!

How about YOU? Have you ever felt like "new and improved" things actually are not? Do we have too many choices most people don't care about? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2026.03.03 01:07 PST
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