I think something people don’t understand about these companies- both processed food and fast food companies- is that they hire a huge number of scientists, from people who design custom artificial flavors and odors to psychologists who understand how to best design packaging to appeal to certain demographics.
They are using their understanding of human psychology and human sensory input to make these products appeal to us as much as they ever possibly could.
And both that understanding and the technology itself keeps improving.
So this will only get worse.
Just remember that every time you see anything advertised to you from a major food company or restaurant chain that they are using your brain against you and doing it well. And it will still work. It works with me despite knowing it.
The sad thing is, the food isn’t even that good.
By far the most appealing food is the stuff I make for myself, after learning exactly how to make something to meet my own preferences.
These foods might awaken all kinds of cravings, but walking into the local grocer, nothing in there that’s ready to eat, will actually leave me satisfied afterwards.
Food is literally just getting worse, even as it’s designed to entice us into eating more than ever
It works with me despite knowing it.
Well, a big mac once every couple months won’t kill you. I enjoy it once in a while (especially after midnight) but eat well the rest of the time. The dosage makes the poison, as the saying goes.
The problem is that for many people it’s one Big Mac this week and one Burrito Supreme the next week and Oreos and Doritos in between and Lattes from Starbucks and endless sugary sodas and so many other things people eat in the Western world.
Yeah, but that’s not really the company’s fault is it? It’s the person’s choice of what they put in their mouths
The notion of “choice,” and “free will” has largely been called into doubt by scientists.
Second, when (as the above-user mentioned) a corporate conglomerate has millions if not billions of dollars to spend on marketing teams, behavioral scientists, psychologists, etc., that tends to overwhelm our finite willpower and short-circuits our primal neural motivators.
Ultra-Processed Foods have tastes and caloric densities in abundance that simply is not found in the wild so easily except for honey guarded by angry bees and salt licks… What do you think that does to the brain whose evolutionary past is still firmly rooted in hunting-and-gathering?
Nestlé, PepsiCo, Mars, and Kraft Heinz
These are some serious, evil, greedy motherfuckers that will never allow UPFs to be regulated in the U.S. It’s vitally important that people take personal responsibility to learn about the dangers of UPFs and eliminate them from their diet.
For a few years now I’ve thought that the food industry will feature as the next controversy as tobacco has been. Years ago I read an article about High Fructose Corn Syrup, its history and its negative effect on the liver. I can’t find the original but this one comes close. Ever since I’ve avoided HFCS.
We then have hydrogenated fats that are considered bad for the body.
The bottom line is that these ingredients are produced to make food production cheaper but at the expense of a healthy diet. Industry sector lobbying helps these ingredients to the market.
Yes this so much. I read this years back but didn’t know alot about it
This is the best summary I could come up with:
When the Brazilian nutritional scientist Carlos Monteiro coined the term “ultra-processed foods” 15 years ago, he established what he calls a “new paradigm” for assessing the impact of diet on health.
Studies of UPFs show that these processes create food—from snack bars to breakfast cereals to ready meals—that encourages overeating but may leave the eater undernourished.
Hall found that the subjects who ate the ultra-processed diet consumed around 500 more calories per day, more fat and carbohydrates, less protein—and gained weight.
In part it has used the same lobbying playbook as its fight against labeling and taxation of “junk food” high in calories: big spending to influence policymakers.
In an echo of tactics employed by cigarette companies, the food industry has also attempted to stave off regulation by casting doubt on the research of scientists like Monteiro.
“There’s scientific agreement on the science,” says Jean Adams, professor of dietary public health at the MRC Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge.
The original article contains 581 words, the summary contains 161 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
