Company strategies and science behind cravings and food
“MOOOOOOOM!!!! I want those pringles and I want them now, and I need those kit-kat bars for later! Buy me them right now or I'm gonna cry and scream!! Please I'm gonna starve to death!!” Does this scenario seem familiar to you? No body wants their child to throw a temper tantrum in the snack aisle. What is it about certain foods so irresistible? Why does a piece of cheesecake make you feel like you're flying over the moon? If you've ever wondered this, well then thank god you have me! The answer is quite simple. 1) Food companies use scientific knowledge as a key for food engineering 2) They aggressively market their products to the younger generation. 3) They pre-plan details strategically.
In the food industry, the creation of a successful product comes down to the science behind it. Micheal Moss spent some years studying and investigating this. He found that they are actively researching the connection between the taste receptors on your tounge and the corresponding chemical reaction in your brain. Frances maglone experimented putting someone into this brain imagining machine and dropped chile on his tounge every 38 seconds, and as he did this, his brain released dopamine, which are feel good chemicals. So during his investigation he found that the brain is fascinated with a mix of different sensations: take a ferroche rocher chocolate as an example, first we have the outside shell which is composed of roasted hazelnuts, followed by a thin layer of wafel, then the buttery smooth chocolate filing, and finally to seal the deal we have a whole hazelnut. As we eat this, we crunch through the outside, and then we are greeted by the plush creamy inside, and then a crun...
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...ike feet? There is science behind foods and why they make healthier alternatives seem unpalatable and unappetizing. Companies are making evident and steady efforts to make their products appeal to kids, and we are underestimating the tactics that they use to achieve their primary goal: have their products flying off the shelves. So here's the science and here's the information, SO WHAT? Well, cravings take control of us. They affect our health. They affect what we do with our money and where we spend our time. By giving into these cravings we are surrendering control of a part of our lives. We need this information exposed so we can take control of our lives, to invoke high levels of change, and make more informed decisions. so today, science is not about facts and studies, but about power. It's about asserting that we are under our own control. Thanks for listening
There should be limit’s that stop’s food companies from promoting themselves as appealing when in reality their food products are a hazard to our bodies. As Barboza states in his article “There is a need to set specific standards on what is marketed to children…” we are in agreement that, what ever kids see on T.V. or being marketed, they want it! As a child I remember that I wanted many things I saw on T.V. like Carl's Jr, Lucky Charms, Mcdonald's, Gushers, ect… When eating these food products, as you get older it affects your health. A good
Food companies do whatever they can in order to promote their product even though they are full of salts, sugar, and fats according to the Monell Science Center. These industries engineer their food products so as to target your taste buds and cause you to crave for more. The end goal of businesses is to make as much money as possible while giving what the customers really wants---junk food. Moss continued by explaining an experiment between two groups of children raised on grocery foods and on home cooking. The results showed that kids who grew up with grocery foods craved foods that were salty or sugary compared to the other group who did not have this
The sole purpose of a company is to offer goods and services while making a profit. If people have a liking for food products with so many unhealthy items and are willing to buy them, the companies have no obligation to reduce the amount of added ingredients. The companies aren’t the ones forcing the public to overeat. However, these companies shouldn’t market their products to people who they can easily exploit like children and those who are penurious. Michael Moss, author of the article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” interviews several people who worked for certain big brand companies and gives us an abundant amount of information on how the food companies make and market their food to “get us hooked”.
“The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” by Michael Moss addresses many issues with big companies and their thought process. Although Moss neglects to show the things that companies do right or do because the consumer desires it. He doesn’t bring to light the different options that big companies put out that are healthier for the consumer. Moss does a good job of pointing out what he believes to be the short coming of big companies towards their consumers. Are big food companies meeting our needs or creating them for us? Should they have to set limits between meeting our genuine needs and making a profit for themselves? Moss’s point of view of the conscious effort to make food inexpensive and addictive is an accurate portrayal.
Eating the pizza instead of the salad seemed like a good idea at the time, but now one is stuck in this sloth like state hours later. It seems letting cravings control what and how to eat is not the best strategy to healthy living. Mary Maxfield, in her article “Food For Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Food” discusses her views on how people should eat. She believes people crave what their bodies need, therefore, people should eat what they crave. Maxfield claims that diet, health, and weight are not correlated with each other, and because of this, people view obesity as unhealthy, thus forcing them to distinguish “right, healthy” foods from the “wrong, unhealthy” choices. As a result, she concludes that science has nothing to do with
Many argue the importance of food and its nutritional value. Food Science has been a heavily debated topic for years. Today, this topic sparks even more controversy. In Michael Pollan’s book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, Pollan shares several aspects of insight on different topics about health and how it should be approached. Pollan breaks down his overall beliefs and explanations from food nutrients to health risk factors. This book has allowed many readers and scientists to approach eating and health from different perspectives.
For years, I have been eating what I want. Food choices are a significant factor that affects our health. What we like or crave, often, is the determining variable in what we eat. Finding the right balance of food choices is the key factor in improving our health benefits. Choosing nutrient-dense foods will provide more nutritional value than foods that are found to be low in nutrient density. Making the right choices in foods, however, is extremely difficult. Often, I find myself enthralled in the latest fad, not considering the subtext of the foods I am eating, such as nutrients, vitamins, healthy fats and unhealthy fats, cholesterol and minerals. The diet project underlined a three-day food entry intake that provided a dietary analysis report
The amount of information on what a healthy diet and weight are is almost limitless, and health standards continue to change as more research is completed. Adding to the confusion in the general populace, many different industries further muddy the waters with unrealistic body image standards, massive portion sizes, and food choices that have substandard ingredients that perpetuate obesity and poor health. Although many diet experts will offer that simply changing what we eat and reducing our weight will improve our health, the issue is more complex and confusion about proper nutrition, its links to disease, and diet failures will persist until the food industry and so called food experts focus on actual science and not their financial bottom
of Philip Morris, said “People could point to these things and say, ‘They’ve got too much sugar, they’ve got too much salt […] well, that’s what the consumer wants, and we’re not putting a gun to their head to eat it. That’s what they want.” (Moss 267) However, consumers are being unconsciously forced to fund food industries that produce junk food. Companies devote much of their time and effort into manipulating us to purchase their products. For instance, Kraft’s first Lunchables campaign aimed for an audience of mothers who had far too much to do to make time to put together their own lunch for their kids. Then, they steered their advertisements to target an even more vulnerable pool of people; kids. This reeled in even more consumers because it allowed kids to be in control of what they wanted to eat, as Bob Eckert, the C.E.O. of Kraft in 1999, said, “Lunchables aren’t about lunch. It’s about kids being able to put together what they want to eat, anytime, anywhere” (Moss 268). While parents are innocently purchasing Lunchables to save time or to satisfy the wishes of their children, companies are formulating more deceiving marketing plans, further studying the psychology of customers, and conducting an excessive quantity of charts and graphs to produce a new and addictive
Eating is an instinctual habit; however, what we decide to put in our body is a choice that will affect our way of living. In “The American Paradox,” Michael Pollan, a professor of journalism at University of California, Berkeley, disapproves of the way Americans have been eating. The term “American paradox” describes the inverse correlation where we spend more of our time on nutrition, but it would only lead to our overall health deteriorating. According to Pollan, our way of eating that had been governed with culture, or our mother, was changed by the entities of food marketers and scientists, who set up nutritional guidelines that changed the way we think about food. Nutritional advice is inaccurate as it is never proven, and it is not beneficial
A vast population of Americans, including my friends and some family members, continue to consume these foods without any knowledge of ingesting damaging chemicals and genetically modified foods. On the other hand, I do not consume fast food because many of the foods contain questionable levels of preservatives and chemical fillers. I also do not drink soda because the sugar and salt contents of the drink can be very difficult on the heart and is also linked to obesity. The majority of the American public are aware that they should not consume fast food and soda, but they are not educated about the effects on the body; so they continue to eat in an unhealthy manner. I grew a passion to learn about how to keep myself healthy. I began changing the things I do and the way I eat. After changing my ways, I grew a stronger interest in chemistry and how the body reacts at the molecular level. So, I decided to continue my education in
“COOOOOKIE CRISP!” My seven-year old self repeats after Chip the Dog convinced yet another parent that cookies for breakfast are in fact a wonderful idea. Sugar, cereal, and cute little cookies were my favorite things in the world at the time, making this sugar infested cereal a treasure that I needed immediately. Just as the parents acting in the commercial, my parents also said “no cookies for breakfast allowed”. But unlike the Cookie Crisp commercial, it did not end with a dog named Chip barging in, shoving a spoonful of miniature milk filled chocolate chip cookies into my parent’s mouths, magically changing their nutrition driven minds. I begged and pleaded for a short time and then decided to put my slightly manipulative mind to work. I knew that if I couldn’t get what I wanted from Mommy and Daddy, I would go straight to the loving source of my grandparents. All I had to do was snap my tiny fingers and every loudly advertised snack I could imagine would be at my disposal. They took their jobs as grandparents seriously by spoiling me terribly and allowing the “normal” rules to be broken, “our little secret”. Air Heads, Twizzlers, popcorn, and chips, all things wonderful were given to me. This adjusted my mind to think that it was okay to have such a starch filled, trans fatty diet thus lessening my desire for anything healthy.
The issue of making choices is important because we need to take care of our health. Nobody going to tell you what to eat or how to live. We have to do it on our own. We have to make decision to eat heathy when we can and change our way of living. Michael Maimaran and Ayelet Fishbach wrote an article online that shows we only about the choice of eating junk food or healthy food. In describing their research, she said, “We propose that preschoolers infer that if food is instrumental to achieve goal, it is less tasty, and therefore they consume less of it. Accordingly, we find that preschoolers (3 – 5.5 years old) rated crackers as less tasty and consumed fewer of them when the crackers were presented as instrumental to achieving a health goal (studies 1-2)” (Michal and Ayelet). In other words, kids will think that if it’s for them to improve in education than they think it is going to taste bad but if you gave them a choice to choose from then they mostly end up getting that same food that we provided them earlier. Their research shows that making choices is important because we have to make decisions to remain healthy. This source highlights the importance of making choices, which David Zinczenko should have addressed in his essay because making
A variety of bright and delectable-looking sweets at Dolcissimo Bake Shop beckons passer-bys to check them out and give in to their “sweet tooths.” French macaroons fill the shelves in bright colored rainbow flavors – from hot pink to teal blue. Smooth, whipped frosting on artificially flavored cupcakes form swirling peaks of strawberry icing. There is “brightness” to the bakery, giving a cheery welcome for customers to buy rather expensive desserts. Though customers may have an inkling that colors and flavors use artificial ingredients such as pigments used in oil paints, acetates and ketones – they tend to put it out of their minds. Sales are made. And companies profit on the knowledge of many studies which have found that color and textures of foods may greatly affect the perception of taste.
Starting from a young age in most families children are told that they need milk and meat to survive and to live a long, healthy life. It’s repeated over and over that the best protein source is meat and the only way to get calcium is from milk. Common foods for toddlers include chicken strips and macaroni and cheese. Kids are targeted with ‘Happy Meals’ from McDonalds and ‘King Jr. Meals’ from Burger King. By the time we reach adulthood, we are brainwashed to believe that we need their products to survive or that using them