Orange juice. How did something so simple become so complicated? Go to any juice isle in any larger grocery store in the US and you will not just see orange juice but you will see:

• Regular orange juice.
• Low-pulp orange juice.
• Pulp-free orange juice (this approaches Tang in my book but for the sake of this entry we'll still call it 'juice').
• Orange juice with extra pulp.
• Reduced-acid orange juice.
• Orange juice with added calcium.

Now from a marketing perspective this is pure genius. Orange juice is already insanely popular and by introducing more varieties you are guaranteed of increasing your share in that market. It's exactly the same logic Coca-Cola and Pepsi use when they give us drinks like diet caffeine-free vanilla cherry Coke and Pepsi One (which has exactly one more calorie than the calorie-free diet Pepsi) and diet cherry Dr. Pepper.

ASIDE - Dr. Pepper is already a graveyard of a drink, I wonder how legitimate it is to add even more flavored syrup and then ascribe a unique, well-known 'taste' to it?

People can now feel confident in their sense of self and know they are indeed not merely a sheep-like consumer because they opted for the soda with one extra calorie or the one with a hint of lemon. It's this kind of important decision making that dominates American consumerism today. To quote my friend Chance, "One walk down the cereal isle and I've used up all my decision making power for the week!" I'm not going to push the overlord theory today, but one would be extremely naive to think that this isn't all by design. The more we get distracted by these non-consequential choices, the less we think about the big picture. It's also much more reassuring and less worrisome to debate the merits of which soda to consume than to wrap your mind around the fact that ALL of the choices you are considering either cause cancer in laboratory animals [1] or are 150 empty calories. [2] Likewise it's much easier to feel sexy and sophisticated because your choice of cigarettes are 1 cm longer in length and 3 mm smaller in diameter than the industry standard and only appears to be smoked (at least in all the advertisements you have seen) by thin women with radiant skin than to ponder the impact that all tobacco has on your body.

What's interesting (and when I say 'interesting' I really mean 'laughable') is how much energy people invest in defending their choice in light of clear and overpowering evidence that all like choices are equally indefensible. Throwing yourself behind this kind of defense gives you a sense of security and purpose. And then once you have invested all this time and energy into defending your choice, you'll be damned if you ever give it up. Did I mention marketing genius? What could be better than an army of loyal consumers who staunchly defend their product choice? Nothing. As a manufacturer you're laughing all the way to the bank since you make all the choices that are available.

Is orange juice alone in the sense that the optimal variety is up for debate? Oh no. Here are several other types of food that would appear - to the complete layman of course - to be quite simple and un-complicated but to the experienced consumer are quite clearly entirely distinct categories.

- Peanut Butter

You can get creamy peanut butter, you can get chunky, you can get extra chunky, you can get natural (caution, natural separation my occur), you can get reduced-fat and you can get it with jelly already mixed in.

- Nuts

Everyone has a friend like this. You make a batch of brownies and they love them yet when you add even a hint of a nut and it's gross. Yet this same person will gladly eat peanut butter or clean you out of your stash of cashews but add any nuts to your cookies and they're ruined.

[1] This blog entry was written without the benefit of access to the Internet so while I realize that not all artificial sweeteners cause cancer like the much-loved Saccharine in that oh so nostalgic drink Tab, I also know that lots of modern calorie-less sweeteners like Aspartame are not good for you either. Especially in the quantities that some folks consume diet drinks. Hello, I get a headache when I chew too much sugar-free gum that uses Aspartame! [3]

[2] It's not exactly 150 you say? So sue me. This just proves my theory that you are debating the insignificant, trivial details of this post without entertaining the more salient, bigger picture; that of me trying to wax significant.

[3] So did I stop chewing gum that contains Aspartame and switch to some that uses only, say, Xylitol? Uh, nope.