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.
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.
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?
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.
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?