The Cool Whip Principle

My girlfriend and I were talking over lunch today about likes and dislikes.

We were eating a desert which she found less than satisfactory, because it had been made with "Cool Whip" (artifical whipped topping of some sort) rather than real whippped cream. She mentioned that she'd rather pay a bit more for quality ingredients, and generally would prefer not to eat artifical whipped topping.

During the course of our later conversation similar points about price vs. quantity vs. effort vs. quality led us to formulate something we decided to call the "Cool Whip Principle". We plan to refer to it whenever we encounter a situation where we have to chose among various competing impulses. We've decided we prefer to go with the quality angle for the most part and will seriously consider our options if that doesn't appear to be available.

For me this also brought to mind an equation that a former co-worker proposed, particular about work production:

Good, Fast, Cheap; pick two.