"They're made to be eaten like that"

There's a fair observation under some of this, which is that the packet isn't neutral. A sharing bag is designed. The size, the resealability that doesn't quite work, the word "sharing" on a bag that one person eats. The run is what the bag is for, and fighting it feels like fighting a thing that was built to win.

I'd agree, and I'd draw a different conclusion from the same fact. If the unit was set for you, it can be set back. Geier's unit bias in chapter 3 doesn't care who chose the unit. It works on whatever unit is in front of you. A manufacturer chose a hundred and fifty grams. You can choose thirty, by buying the small bags, or a handful, by using a bowl, and unit bias will work for you exactly as hard as it worked for them. The mechanism has no loyalty. It serves whoever sets the unit, and this book is about being the one who does.

The sharing bag became the normal size for a reason that had nothing to do with anyone's evening. Larger units sell more product, and Zlatevska's thirty-five per cent is the reason they do. That's not a conspiracy, it's a shelf. But knowing it should change how the bag feels in your hand. It isn't a snack. It's a unit set at the size that sells, and you're the person the size was set for, and you don't have to accept it.

The word "sharing" is worth a sentence too. It's on the bag because the bag is the size for four people, and the bag is eaten by one, on a sofa, and the word is doing the manufacturer's work of making a hundred and fifty grams feel like an ordinary thing to open. It's a sharing bag. Share it, with tomorrow, by putting a bowlful out and clipping the rest.

So yes, they're made to be eaten like that. And you're not obliged to eat them the way they were made to be eaten, any more than you're obliged to buy two because there's a sign that says two for one. The design is a fact about the bag. What you do with the bag is chapter 20.