"I'm a grown adult, I can eat what I want"

Some readers will bristle at a book about cereal bowls. You're an adult. You earn your money and buy your crisps and eat them how you like, and a rule about bowls is the sort of thing that gets imposed on children.

I'd agree with the premise and ask you to look at who's been deciding. Chapter 3's finding was that the unit sets the amount, and the unit was set by a manufacturer. Chapter 8's was that the portion anchors the intake and the anchor holds even when you know it's arbitrary. Chapter 7's was that the screen takes the attention that would have let you notice. Put those together and the person deciding how many crisps you eat on a Tuesday isn't you. It's a bag size chosen in a meeting, a screen that was already on, and a hand. You wanted a few. You got a hundred and fifty grams. That's not a grown adult eating what they want. It's a grown adult eating what a packet wanted.

The bowl is the opposite of a rule imposed on you. It's the moment in the evening where you decide the amount, in the light, before anything else has a say. Pour a handful or pour three. Pour the whole bag if that's what you want tonight, and you'll be a person who chose the bag rather than one who found the bottom. The bowl doesn't take the decision away. It gives it back, from the bag, and puts it in your hand at the one point where your hand is still yours.

There's a test for autonomy, and it's whether the outcome matches the intention. An adult who intends a few and eats a few is exercising choice. An adult who intends a few and eats the bag, three nights a week, with the same surprise at the bottom every time, is exercising something, but it isn't choice, however much it feels like freedom to eat from the bag.

So keep the freedom. Eat what you want. The bowl is how you find out what that is, because the bag has been answering the question for you, and its answer is always the same.