There’s an article on the front page of KSL today that examines why we crave the stuff that’s bad for us. Most people feel that they are overweight because they eat to much and that’s true, but to much is hard to judge anymore. If you talk to most people they will tell you the weight problem that so many American’s deal with is their fault. I agree that we as a country could do more to eat better, but it’s interesting to see what parts of our obesity problem are a result of the techniques of mass production and marketing that we’ve applied to the food chain. Towards the bottom of this article are some great marketing tricks used to sell stuff that isn’t so good for us. Simply talk about what a food lacks instead of the junk they’ve packed in there.
The New Yorker has an interesting article that talks about how we go to where we are.
Some interesting facts from the article:
- Between 1983 and 2005, the real cost of fats and oils declined by sixteen per cent.
- soft drinks account for about seven per cent of all the calories ingested in the United States, making them “the number one food consumed in the American diet.
- In just ten years Americans have collectively gained more than a billion pounds
- Americans’ extra bulk costs the airlines a quarter of a billion dollars’ worth of jet fuel annually.
I read that you need to create a negative associate with a given food since by default your body, craving salt, fat, and sugar has a positive association.
Here goes:
How chicken nuggets are made.
How hot dogs are made.
Yummy eh?