Food manufacturers spend massive amounts of resources on making their foods as “rewarding
ruthfmoy
Posts: 11 Member
nature.Evolution provided us with taste buds that are supposed to help us navigate the natural food environment.Our appetite gravitates towards foods that are sweet, salty and fatty, because we know such foods contain energy and nutrients that we need for survival.Obviously, if a food manufacturer wants to succeed and get people to buy their product, it has to taste good.But today, the competition is fierce. There are many different food manufacturers, all competing with each other.For this reason, massive resources are spent on making foods as desirable as possible.Many processed foods have been engineered to be so incredibly “rewarding” to the brain, that they overpower anything we might have come across in nature.We have complicated mechanisms in our bodies and brains that are supposed to regulate energy balance (how much we eat and how much we burn) – which, until very recently in evolutionary history, worked to keep us at a healthy weight.truth is, processed foods are so incredibly rewarding to our brains that they affect our thoughts and behavior, making us eat more and more until eventually we become sick.Good food is good, but foods that are engineered to be hyper rewarding, effectively short circuiting our innate brakes against overconsumption, are NOT good.
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/01/24/9-ways-processed-foods-slowly-killing-people/
http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/01/24/9-ways-processed-foods-slowly-killing-people/
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But hyper-palatable goods taste sooooooo good! As with most things- moderation is key.
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Which is where personal accountability comes in.0
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Which is why it is so important to engage our frontal lobes (our latest evolutionary advantage) to stop-think before acting.0
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Luckily, I am an intelligent and self-aware adult, so I can choose to eat manufactured foods mindfully and in moderation.0
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I try to make the food that I cook at home taste as good as I possibly can, so that my family eats more of it. Does that make me an evil food manufacturer preying on their delicate, fragile self control mechanisms in their brains?0
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Why shouldn't manufacturers make their products appealing to consumers?0
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I think I'm going to go into business making bad-tasting food. Then go bankrupt.0
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WinoGelato wrote: »I try to make the food that I cook at home taste as good as I possibly can, so that my family eats more of it. Does that make me an evil food manufacturer preying on their delicate, fragile self control mechanisms in their brains?
Seems like.
Funny Bones are back on the market, btw. Hooray for victimhood!
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TheBeachgod wrote: »Which is where personal accountability comes in.
+1
I actually don't like most highly processed foods nearly as much as homemade, and I certainly am not incapable of controlling myself with them. If you think you are, change what you eat. I'm another who tries to make the food I cook as tasty as possible, also.
As I keep saying, I think the biggest victory of the manufacturers is in convincing us we should be eating all the time.0 -
So are Frankenberry, Booberry and Count Chocula for Halloween! I bought some Frankenberry a few days ago!0
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This is your second thread like this today
Are you here to spread your personal wisdom, are you copy and pasting ideas you find interesting? Do you want discussion?
It all seems a little forced and odd to me0 -
Well, yeah.
Their ultimate goal is usually to maximise profits which makes it good for them if consumers buy their products and especially if they over consume them.
Admittedly some companies have corporate social responsibility commitments but profit will always trump that.
They are not in the business of being your friend or being concerned about your health no matter how many sporting events they sponsor or advertisements they pump out to the contrary.0 -
Uhhh ...
We all do this in our own kitchens, right?
We want "rewarding", tastes good foods that we evolved to like/crave.
Nobody sits down at the dinner table and says "Holy hell, Batman, I sure am glad I made this bland, tasteless, unrewarding, unfulfilling dinner tonight!" ... right?
WE ALL DO THIS. DAILY.
You are unnecessarily demonizing sound business practice (evolve your product/service to what the market demands ... or go bankrupt and die) just so you can point The Finger Of Blame at someone other than yourself.
It's time to quit the fear mongering and accept responsibility for your own actions.
Without that, you will surely fail, whatever your goals, in weight loss, fitness, health, and life.
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WinoGelato wrote: »I try to make the food that I cook at home taste as good as I possibly can, so that my family eats more of it. Does that make me an evil food manufacturer preying on their delicate, fragile self control mechanisms in their brains?
I used to scour the ingredient lists of my children's favourite processed foods (Kraft Dinner, Wonder Bread) to wingle out their secrets. By way of this espionage, I now add dry mustard to my cheese sauce, and xanthan gum to my home-made bread.0 -
I don't know that food manufacturers are the only reason we're overweight. It seems to me that throughout "modern" history, humans with access to basically unlimited foods would easily get over weight. I guess I'm saying, are you saying King Henry VIII was somehow not being "short circuited"? Or is it that you consider 16th century royal bakers to be included in the general category of "Engineered Food Manufacturer"?
I'm not saying there isn't some devious sensory mojo going on with the smell of McDonald's french fries (I can smell a McDonald's from, like, 2 miles away...). My question is is it more the availability of the food that short circuits our "innate brakes"? Or is it the actually chemistry of the engineered food? Or is it the "culture" we live in where we don't seem to value moderation and simple living and praise one another and glamorize rational intake?0 -
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WinoGelato wrote: »I try to make the food that I cook at home taste as good as I possibly can, so that my family eats more of it. Does that make me an evil food manufacturer preying on their delicate, fragile self control mechanisms in their brains?
I used to scour the ingredient lists of my children's favourite processed foods (Kraft Dinner, Wonder Bread) to wingle out their secrets. By way of this espionage, I now add dry mustard to my cheese sauce, and xanthan gum to my home-made bread.
That makes you an evil genius. You shall henceforth be known as Dr. Nefario
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It's polite to include a link to the source when you rip someone off. Original appears to be: http://authoritynutrition.com/9-ways-that-processed-foods-are-killing-people/0
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I'm not saying there isn't some devious sensory mojo going on with the smell of McDonald's french fries (I can smell a McDonald's from, like, 2 miles away...).
It's a well known trick of the trade to deliberately pump out enticing scents from a store to lure customers on an unconscious level.
I think Subway does so with the smell of fresh bread. Your nose knows their is a Subway store nearby usually before your eyes or stomach does!
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Luckily, I am an intelligent and self-aware adult, so I can choose to eat manufactured foods mindfully and in moderation.
We are all have the ability to choose to eat mindfully and in moderation. The chemicals in the processed foods makes it so darn tough. I gave up artificial sugars for the most part, but I do notice that when I "cheat"and have anything with aspartame or sucarlose that I am absolutely ravenous a couple hours later. The same can be said with msg. I made my house msg free a couple months ago and cut out 90% of fast food. Intermittent fasting is going well and all is smooth sailing when I eat homemade from scratch. The 10% of the time that we overindulge in msg and highly processed foods, I get such an overwhelming since of hunger the next day that it actually makes me dizzy and gives me headaches. Yes, moderation is a choice, but the food industry and its chemicals make that choice so much more difficult than it should be.0 -
Yes, it's called an industrial grade fume hood.It's a well known trick of the trade to deliberately pump out enticing scents from a store to lure customers on an unconscious level.0 -
diannethegeek wrote: »It's polite to include a link to the source when you rip someone off. Original appears to be: http://authoritynutrition.com/9-ways-that-processed-foods-are-killing-people/
Authority Nutrition
I might have known
Woo-woo-d.derp.com0 -
Yes, it's called an industrial grade fume hood.It's a well known trick of the trade to deliberately pump out enticing scents from a store to lure customers on an unconscious level.
I think it is through specifically and strategically placed air vents in their stores rather just the cooking hoods.0 -
My grandma made her meatballs like that too.
The real scandal with the food industry is not what you're saying here at all. The food they make doesn't "short circuit" anything, or mess with satiety hormones. The shady thing they have done is, relying on research on flavor density, they've made foods highly palatable, but... not quite flavorful enough with just a single serving. You need more of those Cheese Doodles because that first 120 calories of them isn't quite giving you the flavor impact you're seeking.
One of the tips dieters gets is to season and spice up their food, because this whole thing about flavor satiety is actually important to satisfaction with smaller amounts of food. If a food is taste-dense, packed with flavor, you're satisfied with less of it.
If you combine a highly palatable food with a flavor density that's just shy of "there", it's more-ish. You eat more, you run out of it sooner, and you buy more.
That's not engineering food to do something to your body, that's using science to sell more product. Tricksy of them, but hey, that is, as was said upthread, where personal responsibility/accountability comes in.0 -
I'm not saying there isn't some devious sensory mojo going on with the smell of McDonald's french fries (I can smell a McDonald's from, like, 2 miles away...).
It's a well known trick of the trade to deliberately pump out enticing scents from a store to lure customers on an unconscious level.
I think Subway does so with the smell of fresh bread. Your nose knows their is a Subway store nearby usually before your eyes or stomach does!
I t smells like underarms.0 -
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Alluminati wrote: »I'm not saying there isn't some devious sensory mojo going on with the smell of McDonald's french fries (I can smell a McDonald's from, like, 2 miles away...).
It's a well known trick of the trade to deliberately pump out enticing scents from a store to lure customers on an unconscious level.
I think Subway does so with the smell of fresh bread. Your nose knows their is a Subway store nearby usually before your eyes or stomach does!
I t smells like underarms.
Some people like the smell of armpits!
Lots of companies employ this underarm strategy with good results it seems:
WSJ article0 -
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Optimistical1 wrote: »Luckily, I am an intelligent and self-aware adult, so I can choose to eat manufactured foods mindfully and in moderation.
We are all have the ability to choose to eat mindfully and in moderation. The chemicals in the processed foods makes it so darn tough. I gave up artificial sugars for the most part, but I do notice that when I "cheat"and have anything with aspartame or sucarlose that I am absolutely ravenous a couple hours later. The same can be said with msg. I made my house msg free a couple months ago and cut out 90% of fast food. Intermittent fasting is going well and all is smooth sailing when I eat homemade from scratch. The 10% of the time that we overindulge in msg and highly processed foods, I get such an overwhelming since of hunger the next day that it actually makes me dizzy and gives me headaches. Yes, moderation is a choice, but the food industry and its chemicals make that choice so much more difficult than it should be.
Well said0
This discussion has been closed.
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