Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

These patriotic cookies look tempting and delicious, but they give me pause. We are coming up on Independence Day and the grocery store is full of red, white and blue pastries and candies, tempting us at every turn. If you offered me these cookies, my first instinct is to take one (or maybe two because those stars are so very little). If you asked me if I wanted a normal sugar cookie, I can pretty much say no without any reservations, but the red, white and blue cookies are a definite temptation.

When I think about it, though, how are these cookies different from normal sugar cookies? They AREN’T.

The only reason the patriotic cookies are attractive to me is because they aren’t always available. How often am I offered cookies? Quite often, actually, so I don’t really feel like I’m missing out if I don’t eat one. Patriotic cookies, on the other hand, only come once a year. Even though they taste EXACTLY the same as normal cookies, they seem rare.

This is called Artificial Scarcity. Do not let artificial scarcity screw up your eating!

Do patriotic M&M’s taste any different than normal M&M’s? NO! Just because they are only available this time of the year, doesn’t mean that they are any more delicious. Creating red, white and blue packages of M&M’s (or Easter colors or Halloween colors), doesn’t change the fact that all that sugar and chocolate can derail your goals. They do it as a marketing ploy and, honestly, it works really well on most people. Don’t let it derail you.