Listening 39 – Listen for specific words

If you just can’t seem to cut down on cookies, , and soda, it may not be entirely due to a lack of willpower on your part. The disturbing is that food companies have intentionally designed their products to be addictive.

The addictive of junk food are illustrated in an experiment in which rats were allowed to binge on high-fat foods for several weeks. The junk food was then taken away and healthier food was – but the rats preferred to starve themselves rather than eat the healthier food. Researchers then offered the rats a choice between eating junk food, which was with an electric shock, and regular food – and the rats still preferred the unhealthy option, regardless of the pain.

Here are three examples of the sneaky tactics that are used to our taste buds and keep us hooked on food that is harmful to our health. One is something called the “bliss point” – the specific of flavors that maximizes your pleasure while still leaving you craving more. If there is too little taste, you won’t enjoy the food – but if the flavor is too , it will satisfy you and dampen your desire to overindulge.

One brand of soda 61 formulas with subtle differences and tested them with thousands of people until it gathered enough to determine the perfect blend of ingredients – perfect for turning you into an addict, that is. The soda drinkers can consume upwards of 1,000 cans a year, resulting in million-dollar profits for the company.

Chips and other puffy snacks take of a phenomenon called “vanishing caloric density” – because they are light and easily melt in your mouth, your brain there’s no calories in them – and you can keep eating them forever. Of course, the chips are loaded with salt and fat, which to high blood pressure and myriad health problems.

Finally, misleading advertising and labeling can confuse even people who are trying to be health- . Eighty percent of food sold in the United States – even food that is billed as “healthy” such as whole wheat – has added sugar. But you might never know it, because there are fifty-six different terms for sugar. So if you don’t see the word “sugar” on the label, it may be masquerading under a different name.

Sometimes the advertises a positive point to convince us we’re making a healthy choice – conveniently omitting the fact that unhealthy ingredients lurk within. The label “all ” may be slapped on a product that is high in sodium, and the word “light” may mean the food has less fat, but the same number of calories. Many “fat free” foods are loaded with , and snacks that claim to be “made with real fruit” may only include a tiny percentage of it.

Perhaps the most insidious trick has to do with the serving size – to make the product look lower in calories, the nutritional information on the label is based on an small serving. Most people eat two or three times that amount in one sitting – so the next time you’re looking at a label, remember to the calories for the serving size listed.