Try this on your school age kids (or your class or your girl scout troop or...)
1. Take two equivalent grocery items, one highly packaged and one with very simple packaging. For example:
* Pepperidge Farm cookies (that come in a tray inside a plastic wrap inside of a lined bag) and an equivalent house brand cookie
-or-
*Honey Nut Cheerios (that come in a bag inside a box) and the equivalent 'O' ring cereal that comes only in the bag
-or-
*String Cheese with the Corporate Character (Incredibles lately) and the house brand string cheese
2. Unwrap the equivalent items and place side by side for a blind taste test.
3. Be sure to secretly note which item came from which package.
4. Challenge your testers to try each. Is one is better than the other?
5. Take off the blindfold (if you used one) and prove that more packaging, or Brand Name (Disney character or whomever) packaging does NOT mean the product is better.
SAVE money buying the house brand for ever more.