Environmentally Friendly Shopping Bags May Cause You to Buy Junk Food

It turns out that reusable shopping bags may influence the type of food you buy. Scientists have discovered that bringing your own bags may make you more likely to purchase both organic food and junk food.

"Grocery store shoppers who bring their own bags are more likely to purchase organic produce and other healthy food. But those same shoppers often feel virtuous, because they are acting in an environmentally responsible way," write the authors, Uma Karmarkar and Bryan Bollinger, in a news release. "That feeling easily persuades them that, because they are being good to the environment, they should treat themselves to cookies or potato chips or some other product with lots of fat, salt or sugar."

In this latest study, the researchers collected loyalty cardholder data from a single location of a major grocery chain in California between May 2005 and March 2007. More specifically, the scientists compared the same shoppers on trips for which they brought their own bags with trips for which they did not. The participants were also recruited online from a national pool and were randomly assigned one of two situations: bringing their own bags or not bringing their own bags.

When shopper brought their own bags, they were most likely to purchase organic food. However, at the same time they were more likely to purchase junk food.

"In short, bringing your own bags changes the way you shop," write the authors. "Our findings thus have important implications for grocery store managers. In stores where reusable bags are popular, marketing organic or sustainably farmed foods as indulgences could increase the sales of those items."

The findings are published in the Journal of Marketing.

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