Cucumber Pimm's - Drink Up Me Hearties

Picture the scene... It's summer. It's dusk. I'm in the garden surrounded by friends sipping Pimm's at a rather splendid birthday party. A friend observed all the fruit in the Pimm's. Cue jokes about it being one of our five a day. It was then that we noticed the cucumber. Why was there cucumber? Was it part of a liberal conspiracy to make us more healthy? Was it just a mistake? Don't get me wrong; the Pimm's tasted great, but why cucumber?

In their highly influential book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein talk about the potential for using behavioural economics to 'manipulate' people into making objectively better decisions like, for example, eating more healthily. We know that in a canteen placing fruit at eye-level dramatically increases the demand for it.

But surely sneaking cucumber into my Pimm's is immoral?

I'm sure Thaler and Sunstein would immediately point out that they do not advocate tricking or forcing people into eating more healthily. Rather, they propose 'nudging' people to make 'better' decisions. They still want there to be a an open and free choice.

In fairness, the birthday party in question had many drinks on offer. I did not have to choose the fruity Pimm's. I could clearly see there was cucumber present. Perhaps I was just 'nudged' into being healthy...