Food Industry Research Paper

The food industry in the United States is full of problems and corruption on the way it operates. While the industry could be used for good and help keep the nation at a level of health that is respectable around the world, it is instead being used to exploit Americans around the nation. Seeing as “more than half of American adults are now considered overweight, with nearly a quarter of them – 40 million people – clinically defined as obese,” (Moss, 473) there is obviously a big problem, and it starts with the food industry. Through use of marketing tactics, food science practices, the food industry in the United States is pushing the nation’s health down the drain, those at the head of the food industry know it, and are willingly promoting …show more content…
Food science is used to make consumers want to do exactly what the producers want, consume their product and come running back for more, and they do it with startling precision. Foods are now engineered by food scientists with a few variables in mind, those being bliss point (to cause craving), mouth feel (texture), and vanishing caloric density (how quickly something “melts” in a consumer’s mouth). Bliss points in food are derived from complex formulas of different chemicals, amongst other things, which allow for foods to “pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating,” so that the taste of the food doesn’t stay long enough to enjoy it unless it is continually bought and consumed. Mouth feel is important in this process because if a food doesn’t feel right when eaten, then no one will want to buy it, according to Moss when he says “the mouth feel of soda and many other food items, especially those high in fat, is second only to the bliss point in its ability to predict how much craving a product will induce” (481). The most important part of food science, however, is the vanishing caloric density of snack foods, which Moss, when describing Cheetos, is “the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth. If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it… you can just keep eating it …show more content…
It’s hard to be healthy in an environment that encourages the exact opposite with a food industry that advertises extremely unhealthy foods that are scientifically engineered to keep people buying and eating them, but it’s possible to stay healthy! Kristin Kirkpatrick says it’s easy to do and can be made fun, when she says “steer clear of fast food restaurants and start redefining your family’s idea of fast food. Make your own version of “fast food” by preparing quick snacks and meals” (Kirkpatrick). While the industry is creating a bleaker national outlook, the nation as a whole can start changing that outlook one person at a time, all it takes is