On a recent afternoon, while running errands before I had to pick up my kids from school, I froze in the orange-juice aisle of a big-box store. So many different brands lay before me: Minute Maid, Simply, Tropicana, Dole, Florida’s Natural, Sunny D—not to mention the niche organic labels. And each brand offered juices with various configurations of pulp, vitamins, and concentrate. The sheer plenitude induced a kind of paralysis: Overwhelmed by the choices on offer, I simply could not make one. I left the store without any orange juice.

According to the American Time Use Survey, an average grocery trip takes more than 40 minutes. That may not sound like much, but the task can feel overwhelming and time-consuming in the midst of a busy day, especially because every trip consists of a plethora of decisions. Through this lens, what seems like a modern benefit—100 different kinds of ice cream! Every imaginable chip flavor! Hot-dog buns sliced on the side or on the top!—can become a bit of a burden.

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In fact, the basic task of feeding ourselves is replete with microdecisions. A study at Cornell University found that the average American consumer makes about 227 choices regarding food every day, related to when, where, what, and how much to eat, as well as with whom to eat. Making those selections in the face of superabundance can have negative effects. Barry Schwartz, the psychologist and author of The Paradox of Choice, connects consumer paralysis, like my petrified state in the orange-juice aisle, to an increase in dissatisfaction. Even when you manage to make a choice, you can find yourself wondering whether you made the right one. Sure, that Chobani strawberry yogurt was pretty good, but what if you’d gotten Oikos instead? Or Fage? Or those Yoplait Whips?

It seems what we could really use at the grocery store is not more choice, but less. Not freedom to choose, but freedom from choice. I treasure a shopping experience that doesn’t demand that I make a complex decision at every step. In some areas of my life, like picking out clothing, a brand is important to me—I know which label of jeans fits me best. But I really don't care about the brand of granola I buy. My groceries don’t need to be the absolute best on the market; I just don’t want them to be the worst. A solid B+ is good enough for me.

Mercifully, there exists a portion of the retail sector I think of as the “single-option store,” or SOS. The offerings at these establishments are deliberately whittled, typically leaving only a handful of each item to choose from. Perhaps the paradigmatic SOS is Aldi. It sells the basic grocery staples, whether produce or pasta, while largely eschewing name brands. Instead, it provides its own line of items. Its in-house orange-juice brand, Nature’s Nectar, makes up the majority of the stock. The only real decision I have to make is how much pulp I want (none, obviously) or if I want pineapple juice mixed in (absolutely not). The time I save from choosing among the pared-down choices means I often find myself speed-running through the store. The weeknight meals I prepare for my family are tasty, if not quite out of this world. Efficiency is what we’re after.

Inside an Aldi, the vibe is no frills. The shelves are tightly packed and the labels are decidedly unflashy. A shopper won’t be faced with an entire battalion of brands jockeying for their attention. Fewer characters like Tony the Tiger and Cap’n Crunch beckon from the shelves, and I feel relief picking up just a plain yellow box that reads Honey Grahams, with a picture. But an SOS can still offer ambience. Trader Joe’s, with its whimsical decor and doodled chalkboard signs, is very much an SOS. Employees sometimes sport Hawaiian shirts and are encouraged to be friendly with customers. There’s also Stew Leonard’s, a farm-themed store that guides shoppers through a maze-like layout, complete with animatronic animals and produce. These characteristics attempt to turn grocery shopping into an experience rather than a boring, menial task—although I don’t care too much about the experience, really, as long as it’s short.

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While the SOS model reduces certain frustrations, it is not totally exempt from them. Any Trader Joe’s shopper will know the annoyance of searching in vain for some specialty item needed to complete a recipe, like a particular sauce or cooking wine. A person may also not like an SOS brand’s particular take on an item. Cottage cheese, for example, is hard to get right, as the slightest difference in texture can render it unpleasant to me. The only brands I like aren’t sold at Aldi; the store’s option just doesn’t measure up.

Still, the SOS is good at what it does: providing limited, mid-tier-quality food options, and maybe chipping away at my hundreds of daily decisions. I’ll gladly take that trade-off for the time it saves me, as well as the mental space it clears. Now on my afternoon errand runs, I can head to my local SOS, get some store-brand orange juice, and bask in the freedom of not having had to make any choice at all.

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