Why Does Everything Taste Meh?

 

By now we are all familiar with the way inflation makes us poorer day by day. Anyone who has been to the grocery store lately is familiar with how much everything costs now compared to a year or two ago.

You may already have become wise to "shrinkflation" too. That is the sneaky way companies raise prices on you by holding the cost the same but putting less and less product in the package. Everything from breakfast cereal to toilet paper has gotten smaller while prices have stayed the same or even gone up. Or how my chocolate chip cookies suddenly went from 16 per box to 12.

But have you heard of the latest trick that companies, especially food producers, have been playing to get more of your money for less of what you buy with it?

It is called "skimpflation" and it is the substitution of cheaper of fewer ingredients for more expensive ones. An example is Conagra reducing the fat content in its Wish-Bone House Italian Dressing by 10%, replacing it with additional salt and... water. Yes, water. The most egregious example seen recently was in October 2022, when Conagra reduced the amount of fat in its dairy-free Smart Balance spread from 64% to 39%, which meant water became the most plentiful ingredient in the product.

One reason that companies are turning to skimpflation to deceive you is that they aren’t under any obligation to announce when they make changes to their recipes (as long as all the ingredients are accurately reflected on the label). 

And skimpflation in not new.  In 2013, Breyers was forced to legally change the labeling of its products from ice cream to “frozen dairy dessert.” Why? Because the company had reduced the amount of dairy fat in its product to the point that it didn’t legally qualify as ice cream anymore.

Don't think that skimpflation is limited to things you find at the grocery store, it is everywhere. Any time that a company lowers the quality of its product or service to same money (aka, make a greater profit) that is skimpflation. Some other examples include:

• Airlines reducing the number of air stewards and therefore giving consumers less service during a long haul flight.
• Phone companies reducing the number of workers in call centers so that when you try to call with a technical problem, it  takes longer to get through - if you get through at all. (Your call is important to us! Please hit one if you would rather have a callback from us that you will never receive or just stay on the line for 45 minutes till we get to you. After all, your call is important to us!)
  
• Hotels not providing waiter service, but relying on customers to do self-checkouts for breakfast and meals. Or asking you to help "save the planet" by not having your sheets changed.
  
• Disney World and Disneyland have eliminated their tram services to and from parking lots, forcing visitors to walk nearly a mile to enter and exit the parks.

We should note that not all companies are motivated by greed or disingenuousness. Many businesses, especially small businesses, are struggling to cope with the surging costs of regular, old fashioned inflation. They're having a hard time finding workers at the wages they used to pay. And some businesses may be unable to afford paying what it takes to recruit workers in the current environment. Nonetheless, whether it's because they can't afford to, they don't want to or they're being greedy, instead of enticing workers with higher wages, many businesses are cutting back on the quality of their services in order to stay profitable.

The bottom line is that real inflation, the kind you see on your credit card statements, is much higher than the figure reported by the government suggests.

FDA/FTC Crack Down on "Zombie Science"

 

When you walk down the supplement aisle in your supermarket or pharmacy, past the sea of bottles competing for your attention, how can you find one that works better than a sugar pill? You might assume it's reasonable to start with products labeled with words like "clinically proven" or "scientifically shown." But before handing over your money you need to look a little deeper.

According to Dr. Jeff Chen, MD, co-founder and CEO of Radicle Science, which runs some of history's largest crowdsourced clinical trials on supplements, "A majority of so-called 'clinical trials' on supplements are not rigorous and can't determine if the product is better than placebo." In other words, the claims are marketing, not science. But now, these supplement and vitamin companies will have to come up with more proof if they want to make claims on their packaging.

Misleading and unsupported claims had gotten so bad that the Federal Trade Commission, in an effort to protect consumers, released new guidance in December 2022 on the ways health claims by supplement manufacturers are regulated. All manufacturers of "health-related products" must now support their efficacy claims with gold-standard double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials. In April 2022, the FTC sent an unprecedented 760 notices to companies (mostly supplement companies), warning them to "avoid deceiving consumers with advertisements that make product claims that cannot be backed up."

Personally, as someone who does sell nutrition, wellness and healthy aging products, I welcome this new aggressiveness from the regulatory agencies, which is long overdue. In the meanwhile, until companies adjust to the new, more stringent reality (or the bribe congress to overturn the FTC) here are some things you can do right now to avoid being a victim of misinformation or outright fraud.

Action vs Outcomes

 

If you Google this topic you will get a long list of hits, and just about all of them will insist that you should set "results-based" goals for yourself rather than goals based on your activity. Activity, they will say, does not equal results. It seems to me that what they are suggesting is that simply being "busy" will not achieve the results you want. This is hard to argue with, since doing the wrong things will rarely produce the right results.

But I want to suggest that they are 100% incorrect in suggesting that activity does not equal results. In fact, other than pure, dumb luck, nothing else does. Whatever it is you want to accomplish, being it to lose some weight and keep it off, to start a new relationship, to add new customers to your business or anything else, those outcomes are not under your control. What you DO control are whether or not you actually perform the activities that will (eventually) lead you to the result you want.

Suppose, for example, you want to lose 20 pounds by St Patrick's day and then keep it off. Setting THAT as your goal is not going to get you there. What actions will you take that will inevitably produce the desired result if you keep doing them? Will you find and use an App to track your calorie deficit? Will you go for a 30 minute walk every day? Will you start making your own meals 4 days a week instead of eating out? If you really do those things, you will likely achieve your goal. Maybe not by March 17th, but eventually you will. Simply saying you will lose weight based on good intentions most likely won't make you successful.

Of course there are a couple of caveats here.

You have to set the right activity goals based on what you want to achieve, and then you have to actually accomplish them. Either way the activities needed to reach your goal are under your control. They produce the desired result.

I'm not saying that activity goals are easy. Around 75% of Americans make New Year's Resolutions every year, usually results that they want to achieve. By far most of these relate in some way to health and fitness. Despite the fact that over half of those who did set goals claimed to be "very confident" that they would have success, less than 10% of them actually succeed. 

Clearly there is more to it than simply renewing your annual pledge to "go to the gym more often".

Tony Robbins preaches that to have real success you must alter your habits and routines to include the activities that you want to carry out, otherwise your existing routines will simply prevent you from doing so. This can be hard work.

But difficult or not, setting realistic activity goals that will, if carried on long enough, make your desired results inevitable is the way to go. Despite what you may hear from Mr Google.