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What is the motivation behind pouring tons of sugar into almost every food? Is it to change people’s tastes and make them addicted so they eat even more sugary?
by rqtwteye 3y ago
What is the motivation behind pouring tons of sugar into almost every food? Is it to change people’s tastes and make them addicted so they eat even more sugary? I am always shocked how much added sugar is put into foods where you wouldn’t expect sugar.
- financetechbro 3y agoSugar is an addictive substance, more so than cocaine
- pas 3y agookay... that's a very general and super strong claim. what data is this based on?
- busterarm 3y agoYes. To stimulate demand for other Nestle products as they grow up.
- waihtis 3y agoIts exactly that. I recall there are receptors in your stomach lining which detect the presence of sugar even when its not obviously tasteable, such as in predominantly salty fast foods and so. This is a sneaky way to make you addicted while you don't even realize it.
- Steven420 3y agoThat's why they add glucose to so many foods now... It's sugar but doesn't taste sweet
- Waterluvian 3y agoI was amazed how much my taste changed when I cut out carbs for a month. Sweet things started to become unbearably sweet. The sweetness of a red pepper was fantastic and an orange became candy.
- mo_42 3y ago> Is it to change people’s tastes and make them addicted so they eat even more sugary? Sugar gives people a little dopamine boost. So if, as a company, you make your product a little more sugary, people like it more. Then, all the companies are in an arms race to make the tastiest product and you end up where we are. Of course, it's not only about sugar. You also want to make it more salty and fatty because people like that too.
- rqtwteye 3y ago"Then, all the companies are in an arms race to make the tastiest product and you end up where we are." And somehow we can't stop this arms race that causes millions of people to have diseases like diabetes and costs society enormous amounts of money. I guess once Nestle buys up Pfizer and health insurance companies, the cycle is complete.
- otherme123 3y agoHumans crave sugar. The babies would like the sweeter formula the most, so parents will buy it. Nestlè notices that the best sellers are the sweetests, so they double down. For adults salt and monosodic glutamate come into play, the logic is the same. The more you put in the product, the better it sells.
- dabbledash 3y agoI don't know that it's relevant in this case, but I think sugar is often added to make packaged food last longer.
- swatcoder 3y agoIt's not so casual, nor is it about long-term endpoints. Every commercial consumer food product from large brands like this is the output of an elaborate, rigorous "food science" endeavor that tests a variety of ingredient and preparation hypotheses against focus groups, established targets for texture/sweetness/..., cost, etc and balances those against any regulations that the brand's lobbying arm hasn't blocked. They look for maxima across their field requirements and then send the results of that product research to manufacturing and sale. Presumably, and unsurprisingly, they've found that sweetened milk drives more sales and brand loyalty and have therefore pushed it into any markets that allow it.
- rightbyte 3y agoI bought a porridge with sugar in it for my 2yo once by accident. It was really annoying to make him eat ordinary porridge afterwards, so I guess the sugar is much about fooling the parents into believing the kid does not like the non-sugar product. If you don't read the ingridients list you wont realize there is sugar. A nurse once made him stop crying when he was to take a vaccine by sticking her finger in his mouth. I was flabbergasted by such a simple trick working so great, until she said she had sugar on the finger. Sugar is a cheat code for parenting.
- r00fus 3y agoIt's also to make the baby prefer (or stop rejecting) the formula over breast milk.
- scotty79 3y agoIt's cheap. It makes stuff tasty.