[nefitty]

A person doesn't necessarily have to be dumb to fall for these traps. Consider if you had been at the grocery store, particularly exhausted from the day, and just wanted to grab some ingredients. Maybe today you don't notice the added sugar. Today your brain was just spent. Does that make you a dumb consumer all of a sudden?

Most of us average Joe's and Jane's have a lot to juggle in our heads at any given moment. Can I please be excused for not scrounging several stores for sugar free beans, palm oil free chocolate, free range chicken, ethically sourced coffee, etc.? I'm not dumb, it just happens to be that the beans with the sugar are right here in front of me, I have other things to do, and I value my time considerably more than I value this one ethical preference, at the moment.

Default and convenient choices are what consumers respond to. Producers responded to basic biological facts like needing sugar and salt and fat, and so now we're in a place where I can get a Big Mac more cheaply and easily than I can get a cold veggie sandwich. I'm not dumb, I'm busy.