Sonalee Rashitwar
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2021
Autistic content incoming: but I read. A lot. And I don’t like most fiction, so I veer mostly towards science shit. How shit is made, how shit works, disasters.
This includes a good deal of food science. I read “Salt, Sugar, Fat,” and marketing and research around food and how different snacks get made.
Posting my takeaways in case they help:
1. Snack food is mostly dreamed up in labs, tested with focus groups, and these scientists have flavors down to the molecule. Their entire job is to make food that doesn’t make you feel full, hits literal bliss points in your brain (they use actual brain scans), and makes it really hard to eat just one or a serving.
2. Said food and flavors/ingredients are broken down to molecules and essentially predigested in industrial processes, so that more calories are absorbed and the snack can best serve aim 1 above.
3. For Americans: many of our food items and additives are banned as harmful or carcinogens in the EU or other countries. It is OK here due to heavy lobbying by a multibillion dollar food industry. They want you fat, addicted, and sick.
4. Labor practices in meat processing, packing, factories, and fast food are just awful. Low cleanliness, running machines and lines at such a high speed that people are often cut or get repetitive strain injuries, rampant wage theft, and use of immigrant and child labor at all hours of the day and night.
5. The fat acceptance movement and influencers, esp. online dietitians, often receive payouts from this or that part of the processed food industry. Tinfoil hat me, but I think the whole thing might be an Astroturf campaign.
Knowing these things helped me because they effectively made many highly processed snacks disgusting. Also made me think “these marketers think I’m really stupid, I’m not playing this game.” Have thus reduced my intake of processed snacks by about 80%, lost 20 pounds so far, less inflammation from a skin issue, and less joint pain.
This includes a good deal of food science. I read “Salt, Sugar, Fat,” and marketing and research around food and how different snacks get made.
Posting my takeaways in case they help:
1. Snack food is mostly dreamed up in labs, tested with focus groups, and these scientists have flavors down to the molecule. Their entire job is to make food that doesn’t make you feel full, hits literal bliss points in your brain (they use actual brain scans), and makes it really hard to eat just one or a serving.
2. Said food and flavors/ingredients are broken down to molecules and essentially predigested in industrial processes, so that more calories are absorbed and the snack can best serve aim 1 above.
3. For Americans: many of our food items and additives are banned as harmful or carcinogens in the EU or other countries. It is OK here due to heavy lobbying by a multibillion dollar food industry. They want you fat, addicted, and sick.
4. Labor practices in meat processing, packing, factories, and fast food are just awful. Low cleanliness, running machines and lines at such a high speed that people are often cut or get repetitive strain injuries, rampant wage theft, and use of immigrant and child labor at all hours of the day and night.
5. The fat acceptance movement and influencers, esp. online dietitians, often receive payouts from this or that part of the processed food industry. Tinfoil hat me, but I think the whole thing might be an Astroturf campaign.
Knowing these things helped me because they effectively made many highly processed snacks disgusting. Also made me think “these marketers think I’m really stupid, I’m not playing this game.” Have thus reduced my intake of processed snacks by about 80%, lost 20 pounds so far, less inflammation from a skin issue, and less joint pain.
