Have you noticed that some products in the supermarket are now offered in so many new flavors and varieties that you’ve never heard of before? Have you ever been overwhelmed by the choices available that you had trouble finding the flavor or variety you’ve been buying for years? Just how many flavor choices are available now for some basic, everyday products? I decided to find out!

I walked into a rather typical, regular sized supermarket, and headed down an aisle. Mustard was the first product that caught my eye. And I was amazed to discover a display of 54 different varieties of mustard. Yes, 54 mustards!   I could sample a different mustard each week for a year, and still leave a couple untried!

I continued down the aisle and explored the nearly endless wall of bottled salad dressings. People were giving me odd glances as I carefully counted them all. And when I finally finished counting, I was stunned. There were 129 different bottled salad dressings! Unbelievable! 129! Ranch Dressing was the most common flavor, in case you are wondering. There were sixteen different Ranch dressings available. One company alone sells seven different varieties of Ranch dressing!

But before you call a friend to share this bottled salad dressing news, let me tell you this: I found even more! It occurred to me that I had only counted the bottled salad dressings that don’t require refrigeration. So I searched the store and located the refrigerated bottled salad dressings. Can you guess how may varieties the store offered? Ten varieties? 15? Or maybe even 25?   Not even close! I counted 53 different refrigerated salad dressing flavors. Only four brands were represented in the refrigerated salad dressing section, but they combined to offer 53 flavor choices.

After tossing around some simple salad dressing math, I calculated that the total number of bottled salad dressings available at this one store was 182. Think about that. I could try a new and different bottled salad dressing, one each and every week, for more than three years!

As I kept walking through the aisles, I continued to be surprised by the sheer volume of choices for what I had thought were just simple, basic products. I counted 17 different peanut butters, 37 varieties of tortilla chips and 48 flavors of water. And a stunning 51 varieties of what we used to just call potato chips!

But wait, there’s more!

I turned and headed into the meat section of the store. On my right, I saw a huge display of fresh franks. Yes, hot dogs, for almost as far as I could see! I counted 31 fantastic frank flavors. There were turkey franks, chicken franks, beef franks and pork franks. There were kosher franks, uncured franks, natural casing, organic, and fat free franks. And they had king size, bun size, and even bigger-than-bun-size franks! Whew! Frankly, I was impressed!

After giving some thanks as I finished counting the franks, I swiftly sashayed to the sausage section. And here, and this is no baloney, I found 44 varieties of savory sausage stacked on the shelves. One company, called Aidells, is certainly a serious sausage supplier! Aidells offers 12 sausage flavors, from Artichoke Garlic sausage, to Maple Bacon Chicken. But a company called Al Fresco presented the most mind-boggling flavor, something they call Wild Blueberry Maple Syrup Chicken Sausage. Blueberries? In a sausage? Now that’s just more than I can handle!

As I turned into another aisle, I entered the surreal world of cereals. There were seven types of Fiber One cereal, 10 varieties of Special K, and 13 different versions of Cheerios! Some of the Cheerios flavors sounded tempting, such as Dulce de Leche (Caramel), and Banana Nut. But the thought of even one spoonful of Peanut Butter Multi-Grain Cheerios brought me no cheer at all.

Even with 13 varieties, Cheerios was not the big winner in the cereal section. That honor went to Quaker Instant Oatmeal, with an amazing 16 separate flavors! (Surprisingly, Quaker has apparently not yet created an Oatmeal Cookies flavor. I’d buy that one in a flash!)

Just thinking about cookies sent me off to find the cookie section. And I was not disappointed. Twelve versions of the classic Oreo cookie greeted me on the shelf! Among that dozen, I saw Oreos with Peanut Butter, Mint, or Chocolate filling. And there were double-stuffed Oreos, and chocolate covered Oreos. There were even Oreos with vanilla (golden) cookies, and a version of Oreos sharing both a chocolate and a vanilla cookie! I had trouble just finding the plain, basic, original Oreo!

But my biggest Oreo surprise was discovering the package of Berry Burst Ice Cream Oreos. Berry Burst Ice Cream? Although that flavor sounded quite questionable to me, in the interests of professional journalism, I gave it a try!   The verdict: not so bad, as long as you enjoy a very artificial and slightly chalky strawberry flavor that tastes nothing at all like real strawberries!

To finish my product counting tour, I headed over to the area where I had a hunch I’d find the ultimate champion of flavors and variety: the canned soup section. And indeed, I was bowled over by the amazing number of canned soup flavors. How many? I counted 174. Yes, 174 entirely different flavors of canned soup! And Campbell’s definitely ruled the canned soup shelves. Campbell’s canned soups were available in an astonishing 86 different varieties!

I had to leave the store after counting the canned soups. I had become numbed by the numbers. I knew I could have stayed and counted the Chardonnays and Cabernets, or visited the beer aisle, where there was a vast array of bubbly brews. And there were also bottled waters, flavored yogurts, pickles, and popcorn that still remained uncounted.

But it was time to go. For some reason, I had started thinking about paint. House paint. I began to wonder just how many colors of interior house paint, each with it’s own little sample color card, could there be?

And so I drove off in my car to find the nearest paint store!