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I know that we grow up knowing certain brands. And when we think of some foods, we immediately think of some brand names. Like Kleenex for tissues, Chiquita for bananas, or Arm and Hammer for baking soda. That’s just because these companies have done an amazing job with their marketing campaign. Kleenex did such an incredible job that we now use the words Kleenex and tissue interchangeably! But Kleenex doesn’t mean tissue. It is a brand name. Whoever was behind their marketing strategy, I’d love them on my team. Imagine having the whole world think that you are the creator of a product, when you’re just one of the hundreds of companies who put their label on a product? Now, on the consumer side, we aren’t as lucky. Because we’re so quick to grab the brand names we know and love, we wind up spending more money. And we don’t ask ourselves why we love them more. Or what brand we love them more than. We haven’t even tried the other ones. There are certainly times when the brand name matters. Some brands have propriety ingredients and formulas that you can only get from them. But in some cases, a product from one brand is not at all different from another. Only the sticker and packaging changes. Here are things you should always buy generic.
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Meat
There are certainly differences in meat. Grass-fed. Organic. No hormones added. Free-range. Aged. Local. Humanely raised. You get the idea. But none of those qualities are specific to any one brand. And you can often find all of the qualities you want, in the no-name, saran-wrapped meat offered by the butcher inside of your grocery store. It doesn’t have to be Foster Farms or Tyson or Hebrew International.
