The Extraordinary Science of Junk Food - NYTimes page 2

[dixonge]

I just came here to post a link to this article! Amazing read. Really ought to to help me stop eating any sort of junk food....

[sbhikes]

I particularly enjoyed the section where they talk about how the products are specifically formulated NOT to provide satiation.
eg:

This contradiction is known as “sensory-specific satiety.” In lay terms, it is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more. Sensory-specific satiety also became a guiding principle for the processed-food industry. The biggest hits — be they Coca-Cola or Doritos — owe their success to complex formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating.

I was just going to copy and paste this very part. Still reading...

[qqemokitty]

I'm glad you guys enjoyed it as much as I did!

Yeah the Yoplait thing really made my head spin a bit. I used to love Yoplait, it was my favorite brand, though I never got too into the fancy dessert combo flavors I loved their peach, lemon, and cherry.

I wouldn't touch any of it these days with a 20 foot pole, lol. >.<

I posted this article on Facebook as well, and my co-worker actually read it. Then he basically brought up to me that he understands why the companies do it, because profit is more important than anything else. And I'm like, yeah, totally. We are in business, they are in business, everything is a business and we all need to make money. But making money at the expense of the health of others is incredibly unethical, and it is scary that it is allowed to continue despite the fact that they teach things like business ethics and social responsibility in most business and marketing classes at the college level. (I am taking such a class right now, and the text book has quite a few chapters devoted specifically to ethics in marketing.)

Same co worker is mostly amusedly tolerated regarding all my dietary stuff. He hates all vegetables and eats nothing but meat, crackers, soda, and candy bars. xD He is very fit despite this.

[JoanieL]

I am that naive person that believes selling a quality healthy product to a customer means you both get value. The customer gets that healthy product, and you get their money. That would be a type of ambition.

Selling garbage and trying to make your customer so sick that they crave (as in drug addiction) your product is different. Then the customer gets no value, but you still get their money. That would be a type of greed.

The business community has allowed itself to become morally bankrupt. Lazy consumers are almost as much to blame. I tend to forgive ignorance (the consumers that buy this crap) slightly more than I forgive stealing money from ignorant people. YMMV.

It may never turn around, but hopefully, with Vegetarians/Vegans, Primals/Paleos, hippies, off-the-grid-ers, etc., we'll all make a dent.

[magicmerl]

Selling garbage and trying to make your customer so sick that they crave (as in drug addiction) your product is different. Then the customer gets no value, but you still get their money.

That's not quite true though. The customer gets convenience, tastiness, and can subsist on the junk easily. It's just that we place a much higher value on nutritious food than they do. And we have a different idea of what healthy food is.

[qqemokitty]

The average chip consumer consumes doritos because they simply think they taste good.

The average meth addict consumes meth because they simply think it feels good.

Both products are engineered specifically to give the human body a high and keep it coming back for more.

The difference is that most consumers don't know this fact about their doritos. It is, to them, a simple tortilla chip with spices on it. If only it was truly that innocuous.

Edit: My personal favorite Doritos are pictured below:

[sbhikes]

Ha ha. The serving sizes crack me up. Not just for chips but for healthy stuff, too. My little cans of salmon say 3.5 servings. What is that, a spoonful?

I read somewhere that flamin' hot cheetos are the number 1 seller to high school kids in the US or at least in Southern California. I've never had them. Must be good.

[sbhikes]

I sent a link to this to my boyfriend. He's outraged. He plans to quit all junk food just as soon as the girlscout cookies are gone. Ha ha.

[qqemokitty]

Gosh I do love me some girl scout cookies. I want to buy some but strangely have not encountered a girl scout so far this year.

[MissJecka]

I sent a link to this to my boyfriend. He's outraged. He plans to quit all junk food just as soon as the girlscout cookies are gone. Ha ha.

Holy crap. I'm going to show this to my boyfriend ASAP and hope he does the same! (We have three boxes of girl scout cookies in our kitchen at the moment.)