24 The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food

We don't normally think of food as a technology, but people have learned to engineer it with ever better precision. Centuries ago humankind figured out that combining yeast, grain, and water would yield alcohol. Today, food scientists can reformulate food products to create very specific effects for consumers. The goal for many food producers is to achieve the bliss point, the perfect balance of flavor and texture that makes people want to eat more. Focusing on compelling people to buy more and eat more does, however, have wide-reaching effects beyond a healthy bottom line for the producer. Many scientists argue that the easy availability of certain foods (which they go so far as to label "addictive") has been a major, if not the major, contributor to the obesity problem in the United States and beyond. Moss suggests that the engineers involved were able to advance the values of their bosses, perhaps, to the detriment of the values of many others.