First, there's not complete agreement in psychology nor neuroscience: you can find support for most any imaginable position. But in terms of the consensus of recent peer-reviewed work, here are some thoughts.
“When a person is drawn to a specific item on the menu or a particular romantic prospect, the mind is trying to tell him that he should choose that option."
There's a false dichotomy here between a person's motivation and some external (?) agent called "the mind". Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors emerge from biological and cognitive processes, and if you dig into those operations there is no level that reveals a separate agent. See this link for a related theory called the Homunculus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus#Terminological_use_in_modern_science , or chapter 2 of the book, Waking Up by Sam Harris, for a deeper dive into agentic selves in the brain.
"It has already assessed the alternatives – this analysis takes place outside of conscious awareness – and converted that assessment into positive emotion."
There were early reports of complex weighing of alternatives by unconscious minds by Dijksterhuis and others, but the higher-quality recent replication attempts suggest these claims were overblown. The unconscious mind may or may not be able to do basic arithmetic. That's the current level: nothing so fancy as suggested here. Recent coverage of this replication: https://retractionwatch.com/2017/05/08/can-math-unconsciously-replicators-prominent-2012-study-doubts/
"The world is full of things and it is our feelings that help us choose among them.”
This is true, but is already well known. Feelings, thoughts, and motivations operate together to urge our organisms towards desired outcomes and away from unwanted outcomes. Here's an article that goes into more depth on how the body (including our mind) pursues desired states: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00332747.1955.11022996
