When Harvard University tried to save money by replacing brand-name Corn Flakes with generic cereal, students at the dining halls were furious. “It was mutiny. It was brouhaha,” says Mollie Katzen, author of The Moosewood Cookbook and a consultant to Harvard’s Dining Services. “To me it was an incredible example of people’s attachment to brand and product.”

Interestingly, when experts shop for themselves, they’re not always as married to a name and a warm childhood memory as cereal-obsessed students are. Candid conversations reveal there’s plenty of wiggle room in the private shopping lives of top chefs, leading doctors, and hairdressers to the stars. And, of course, there are things the experts never skimp on.

Peek inside the pantries of some top chefs and you’ll see any number of brandless items. Flour, especially if it’s unbleached and organic, is something Katzen will buy in bulk bins at the supermarket. Ditto for dry goods — nuts, dried fruits, and beans, she says. But she’s much more careful about anything that originates from animals.

“I’m really conscious about dairy products and eggs, because they can have growth hormone in them,” says Katzen. Anything that needs USDA approval is something she won’t cut corners on. “I’d rather spend more, get premium, and make sure they were raised healthy.”

She also considers package versus product. “Nine times out of ten a generic product will be packed by a name-brand product, and a lot of them come from the same source.”

At The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, Eve Felder, associate dean for culinary arts, says there are currently only two generics used for classes.

“We use only soy and corn oil as generics,” she says. But in her personal life, the chef has her attachments, and she buys branded mayonnaise and Tabasco sauce.

Not surprisingly, she is very careful with olive oil.

“Olive oil is just like wine,” she says. “It’s a fruit, and a vintage. It’s not so much a brand, but which harvest. Did Spain have a really good harvest this year, or did it rain a lot?”

“I will use a generic olive oil to simply cook with — a pure olive oil. But for a vinaigrette, or if I would feature it,I would always use the best.” As for the price difference, a simple but pure olive oil costs about $25 a gallon, while a cold-pressed extra-virgin olive oil from a small farm might run $23 for 750 ml (or about $116 for a gallon).

Then Felder delivers a surprise. “I care about salt,” she says. “Salt is a very interesting animal, because it can have additives that are mechanical-tasting, but it can be strong, too strong. Certain brands are over the top in their saltiness.”

“I wouldn’t use a generic brand of salt,” Felder says. She has a preferred brand, “but to finish, I would use a sea salt or fleur de sel.”

And on the sweet side, Felder says the brand of sugar “doesn’t matter, because there’s not a whole lot of variance in flavor. Honey, on the other hand, is not so much brandspecific as locale-specific” — much like olive oil and wine.

Then there are the tools the feast is prepared with. Felder will give generic wooden spoons a try, but she’s quite particular about her knives.

“It’s a question of what a knife looks and feels like,” she says. “It could be some type of Japanese knife from a hole-in-the-wall store.”

“Utensils and tools are very personal,” Katzen says. “I would tell people not to go by price, but by the relationship with your hand. If it feels right to you, it can be a no-name brand.”

When Dr. John Abramson, a member of the clinical faculty at Harvard Medical School, has a headache, he heads straight to the generics, usually displayed just out of eye level at the drugstore.

“If there’s a generic available for a product that I’m looking for, then I’ll buy the generic,” Abramson says. As a rule, the name brand isn’t necessarily better.

“The truth is that I enjoy comparing the unit cost or the price per pill of the brand name and the generic to see how different it is and how much you can save by buying the generic. I think that’s kind of fun. It varies, but it could be as much as fifty percent difference.”

There are a few important caveats to the generic strategy, and Abramson uses these caveats when purchasing both prescription and non-prescription drugs in his personal life.

“You need to know the active ingredient of the brand-name drug that you want to buy the generic drug in,” he says, “and you do have to be a good label-reader. You have to make sure you’re getting the drug you want — the active ingredient of the drug you want. But if you do that, you’re going to get the chemical equivalent.”

Chemical equivalent doesn’t mean the exact same thing, he claims. “The chemical is the same, but the other components that make a pill or powder can be different,” Abramson explains. “Maybe that pill crumbles a little bit easier, or maybe there’s a different texture to the powder.”

Interestingly, that’s not true for products that are related to medicine, like ear swabs and bandages. “If somebody’s selling naproxen, then it has to be naproxen,” Abramson explains. “But if someone’s selling you an ear swab, it could be lower quality than the brand name. So I think you would want to try it out before you would buy a big quantity of it. The quality may be very acceptable, or it may not.”

The generics argument also holds true when it comes to choosing a physician. “My experience is that consumers who demand to go to specialists right off the bat and don’t go to a primary care doctor definitely spend more money and have worse outcomes,” Abramson says.

So, if you adopt a generic-may-be-fine attitude for a physician, you may end up wealthier — and healthier.

Nothing says health and wealth like great hair. When it comes to selecting a hair dryer to show it all off, Etienne Taenaka, winner of the Los Angeles Blow Dryer of the Year Award given by Harpers and Queens, and a leading stylist at Vidal Sassoon in Beverly Hills, is surprisingly egalitarian.

“Brand doesn’t matter to me,” Taenaka says when asked for his expert take on hair dryers. “What matters to me is how much power the dryer has. You want to look for one that has high heat and full air ? ow.”

“Dryers that are slower with the heat can take forever,” says Taenaka, who has clients who rely on his stylingservices come awards season. “When it’s not hot enough...you end up overdrying the hair and doing damage. When you’re using a dryer properly, the heat is what makes it shiny,” he explains.

The other tool he’s willing to go generic on is the comb. “Combs I’m not particular with,” he says. But his casual tone changes dramatically when he mentions brushes.

“Brushes I’m very particular about, because many generic brushes are made in such high volume that the way they’re glued onto the base will pull the hair,” Taenaka says. “With a well-made brush, the ball and the bristle is all one piece.”

He says a consumer can easily look at a brush to assess quality. But Tanaka doesn’t use cheap shampoo — ever.

“You never skimp on your hair or your shoes,” he insists, when the idea of nameless shampoo is proposed. “How many times have you skimped on your hair and you look in the mirror and say, ‘My God!’ ”

Though the right shampoo may be essential to lifehappiness and hairdresser approval, you can con? dently use other generics if you do your homework.

If you scrutinize what you’re buying, you can probably revel in the glorious, cheap anonymity of generics...just like the pros do.