How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains

[cagesoulman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/health/23well.html?8dpc

As head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. David A. Kessler served two presidents and battled Congress and Big Tobacco. But the Harvard-educated pediatrician discovered he was helpless against the forces of a chocolate chip cookie....

...“Why does that chocolate chip cookie have such power over me?” Dr. Kessler asked in an interview. “Is it the cookie, the representation of the cookie in my brain? I spent seven years trying to figure out the answer.”...

When it comes to stimulating our brains, Dr. Kessler noted, individual ingredients aren’t particularly potent. But by combining fats, sugar and salt in innumerable ways, food makers have essentially tapped into the brain’s reward system, creating a feedback loop that stimulates our desire to eat and leaves us wanting more and more even when we’re full.

Dr. Kessler isn’t convinced that food makers fully understand the neuroscience of the forces they have unleashed, but food companies certainly understand human behavior, taste preferences and desire. In fact, he offers descriptions of how restaurants and food makers manipulate ingredients to reach the aptly named “bliss point.” Foods that contain too little or too much sugar, fat or salt are either bland or overwhelming. But food scientists work hard to reach the precise point at which we derive the greatest pleasure from fat, sugar and salt.

[flvegan]

1. Eat to live.

Don't live to eat. Food shouldn't be so much of a pleasure center. It's fuel.

Yeah, yeah, yeah...I know, I hate America, etc, etc.

[lildreamer316]

8. Yes, but

I think also eating simply and cooking at home helps..I've found combining simple ingredients and eating whole provides a lot of pleasure! I think both can be had if done correctly.

..but I do love my red wine :)

[NeedleCast]

21. How boring

[handmade34]

2. I just finished "The End of Overeating"

intentional manipulation - key words. ...and it is all about money, no concern for the welfare of the consumer...

"Dr. Kessler is perhaps best known for his efforts to investigate and regulate the tobacco industry, and his accusation that cigarette makers intentionally manipulated nicotine content to make their products more addictive" and now he is doing the same with food manufacturers... recommended reading

[gauguin57]

3. I'm gonna sue somebody.

Just gotta figure out who.

They can pay my Weight Watcher bill this week.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Well I CAN certainly believe that

mostly due to the evidence we have

That said we went for dinner tonight and later went for yogurt. I didn't finish my baby portion that was still large. As I threw it the lady seating there glared at me. She was a tad overweight.

I don't judge... but that struck me as weird... creepy in fact

[nolabels]

6. It's frightening just to walk down the food aisles in the grocery store

Everything has that same equation of sugar/corn syrup, salt and fat added. And i don't even want to think how the shelfs of meat and produce shelves got their stock :scared:

[handmade34]

7. Food Inc. - wake up call

a must see for all food eaters

[AllieB]

15. I saw 'Food Inc' on Saturday. I hope the film gets wider distribution.

[cali]

9. I don't go to the supermarket very often

but when I do, I'm fascinated by all the crap people have in their baskets at the check out. I chiefly shop at the local general store and the coop. (the nearest big supermarket is a half hour drive.)

[eridani]

10. Why didn't you ask for a people bag?

Maybe she was objecting to the wastefulness.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. On yogurt? soft serve? One or less ounce? You kid me.

[eridani]

22. True, that's not very much

I'm seriously nutz about wasting things, esp. food.

[Pharlo]

13. For me, it's frozen custard.

But, my way around it is I only get it when I take one of the dogs for a three mile walk. I then order a single scoop in a dish. If I get three spoonsful before the dog 'talks' me out of the rest, I'm lucky. I get my fix, the pup gets exercise, and a treat - oh, and no waste.

[housewolf]

5. Saw his pressentation about the book on BookTV yesterday

Wow, was it ever powerful and persuasive! Huge inditement of the advertising Big Food does against the public good. Once our brains hook up sugar-salt-fat into a positive response, there's really not so much an individual can do to permanently change it. Says we're constantly stimulating ourselves with sugar-salt-fat foods, almost like a drug addiction. Restaurants really really REALLY need to post nutritional info on menus because we have no idea how much we're eating when we eat out. Unbelievable rate of increase in type 2 Diabetes in just the last 20 yrs or so.

I sort of remember "hating" Kessler in the earlly 90's - something about birth control restrictions or something like that... but he's done good work on the tobacco regulation issue and now this. It's a must-read for everyone who has food or weight issues, and particularly parents.

[eridani]

11. Best thing about retirement is having more time to spend on scratch cooking

Gradually wind down on use of sugar, fat and salt, and your tastes adjust. ThoughI refuse the deprivation resulting from tryying to eliminate any one of the three.

[zbdent]

12. mmmmmm ... brains ...

oops ... sorry ...

mmmmmm ... chocolate chip cookies ...

[spinbaby]

14. Drool

Chocolate chip cookies. Believe me, if one were within reach, I'd have devoured it before this thread was over.

[NashVegas]

16. Individuals Bear Some Responsibility for Their Own CHOICES

And, IMO, so do employers who make it impossible for employees to eat healthy.

I don't know anyone who can sit through a full meal at Logan's or a similar sit-down chain restaurant and not feel like crap an hour later. And yet, so many just keep going back, because it's easier, because the office kitchenette doesn't have the proper equipment for scratch cooking. Because so many of us can barely be bothered to set aside 30 minutes to cook our own dinner, let alone tomorrow's lunch.

After graduating from college, the only times my weight ever went down were those times when I lived close enough from my place of work to take a break and go home for lunch, and employers who were loose enough about the clock to place more importance on the work getting done, rather than my being there for eight hours.

[cagesoulman]

17. Yeah, but what's available matters too

4'33"

[cagesoulman]

19. kick

4'33"

[jazzjunkysue]

20. The newspaper fliers make everything look like haute french cuisine.

I see the steaming rolls and cheese filled casseroles and I want it all. But I know it's all fat and sugar and salt and I refuse to go there.