People on Lemmy: I buy fresh so this doesn't affect me

Monsanto:

They determine a lot through pricing and decision on availability.

People don't like getting ripped off or paying more than they have to so people, myself included, buy more of whatever they happen to have on sale this week. At our house a lot of decisions on what to have for dinner start by looking through the weekly offers page on the supermarket's app which influences our diet. For instance we eat a lot more chicken than we would do if it wasn't constantly on sale.

Decisions to jack up prices also affect diet. For instance we used to eat a lot of ground beef and sour cream but now it has become so expensive that it is no longer worth what they're charging so we almost never have it anymore.

Availability is also a huge part of the way they determine what we eat. It don't even have to be a food desert to have a huge influence, the convenience of not having to go to more than one shop alone has a huge influence. For instance I like beefsteak tomatoes a lot more for everything where you cut up the tomatoes and don't want the watery seeds. But I eat a lot more plum tomatoes because that's what they have at ordinary supermarkets and I would have to go to the Arab store to get the other ones which would mean I would have to spend 20 minutes more shopping.

If you use any diet tracking app, they'll have that data. Any supermarket loyalty program can infer a good amount. Some can be inferred from location data (eg amount of time spent at a restaurant). Menulog, ubereats etc will track it as a matter of course. that's just off the top of my head.

EDIT: I misread the question.

If you go up a level from the obvious interaction of marketing on food choices, there's still a hell of a lot of corporate influence on the food environment. Your job, your rent and utilities determine your food budget, which limits your choices. Your job and commute also determines the amount of free time you have to cook. Your commute is controlled in part by car and fossil fuel industry. If you don't drive, you're limited to what you can reach and carry via public transport or bicycle infrastructure (both also gutted by car lobby). Supermarket corps determine where the stores are, what they stock, and how much it is. So you'll find your choices limited by travel time, availabilit, and budget again. You can go up another level again and manufacturers and producers will have influence over (for example) the FDA, which determines safety standards of what you eat. So even if you consider yourself unpropagandised, corporations still control pretty much the entire food system and what you eat. Unless you're living off-grid and growing everything yourself, pretty much every food decision you make is touched by a corporation. Even then, you'll have to buy your seeds from somewhere.

UPC product labels, tied to your "rewards" number. And then, the list is printed on your receipt.

That list is then shared with "interested third parties" and any concerns about your privacy is buried several pages downstream in the usage agreement for using the rewards card.

They decide what I will eat when I go out to eat, like once a week. Other than that, I buy mostly fresh food, so they don’t have a say.