For many of us, it is still not obvious why in recent years there has been a sharp increase in diseases associated with excess weight. There may be several reasons for this, but one is very serious – the food industry, or rather how it has changed over the past few years and what it does with food.
While working on a study called Salt. Sugar. Fat, reporter The New Y Times Michael Moss delved into the secrets of the food industry and asked developers and industry leaders how the food industry affects what people eat and how it makes money by changing people’s eating habits. In a recent interview, Michael Moss shared his discoveries, and I want to cite excerpts from his story. This is a translation of an article from the National Public Radio website.
On the responsibility of the food industry for the obesity epidemic
I was really amazed at how many people within the industry say that the food industry is entirely to blame for this surge in obesity over the past 30 years. Of course, there are other factors – physical activity, personal responsibility. But the responsibility of the food industry, directly involved in this, stems from its attempts to make its products so desirable and tasty, so “perfectly engineered” that they are not only liked, but that we want them over and over again.
About what “perfectly engineered” products are
Food executives are hiring people like Howard Moskowitz, who studied advanced mathematics at Queens College and Experimental Psychology at Harvard. Howard is one of those responsible for some of the most famous and popular items in the grocery store.
For example, he told me about his recent experience in creating a new flavor for soda. Dr. Pepper… He started with at least 59 variations of the sweetener, ran 3 taste tests across America, and, after mathematical regression analysis, put the data into a computer. And from that, a bell-shaped curve was created, at the very top of which is the optimal amount of sweetness – not too little, not too much.
It was Howard who came up with the expression “bliss point,” which implies the perfect sensation of sweetness that makes products fly off the shelves.
About designing a sweet bliss point in foods that are not meant to be sweet
This is not about soda, ice cream, cookies and other foods that are expected to be sweet for us. Food companies have engineered a sweet bliss point in foods that are not meant to be sweet. Therefore, now there is, for example, bread with added sugar. Some brands have yoghurts as sweet as ice cream, and pasta sauces contain so much sugar that with half a serving of pasta, you eat the same dose as two sweet cookies. (In my sugar detox course, I tell listeners how sugar is masked and what completely unexpected foods it contains.).
Nutritionists say: as a result of such manipulations, we form a food idea that everything tasty should be sweet in the first place. This is especially important for children who are highly sweet-oriented. Therefore, you face a real rebellion when you try to get them to eat something that really should be present in the diet in abundance, but with a different taste – bitter or sour, such as Brussels sprouts or broccoli.