I could have sworn I heard something once about how fast food chains put addictive chemicals in their food. For me, I don't have an addictive personality. There's nothing in my life I feel addicted to other than fast food. It's weird. I know the food is dogshit and I can make tastier stuff at home. But I also think about getting fast food all the time and have to stop myself from ordering it a lot. It does kind feel like a dopamine hit when I open up a bag of fast food and start digging in.
Think of it this way. No, it's unlikely that fast food companies are putting actual drugs in your food. Yes, they do hire teams of scientists to engineer the most satisfying and crave inducing product possible, down to the smell of the french fries and the color of the buns. You're going up against 100 million dollars of R&D aimed directly at your lonely little monkey brain, so it's not surprising that people get addicted to the stuff, because that's what these companies paid to make happen.
Products can be evaluated and optimized using a method known as quantitative descriptive analysis (QDA), in which a focus group defines the sensory attributes for a specific product and establishes numerical scores for these attributes. Establishing the appropriate measurement is of major importance, as it allows sensory results to be quantified. This is the essence of sensory science: converting human perception of a food into quantifiable results.
From some random article on fast food R&D. You shouldn't underestimate how much effort goes into making fast food as addictive as possible. It's an entire industry.
That's a huge part of the R&D - it needs to be created so that the final preparation will get done by someone who doesn't give a shit.
Can confirm. Worked at jack in the box and nobody gave a shit about making tacos but they still ended up delicious and addictive
a flavorist must always consider the food’s “mouthfeel”
everyone's talking about it now :sicko-yes:holy crap. Imagine if all this technology, time, and effort was put towards something that actually benefited humanity
It's an interesting question. Getting people the tastiest food possible on the cheap isn't in itself a bad thing. The problem is that that food is unhealthy and makes people fat. I wonder how much would it cost to make basically the same food but healthy or whether it's possible at all.
Most of the fast food places near me also clearly have fans pushing the smell of the food out their window, you can smell it from 20+ feet away. If you've had a long day, you're tired and hungry and suddenly you smell something super tasty and there's a nice, pleasant looking fast food restaurant that can satisfy that itch in a matter of minutes, it's not hard to see how that can be super tempting to a lot of people.
sugar dependency is a hell of a drug.
try cooking with a bit of honey, less disastrous for your health for sure
addictive chemicals
Yes, it's called sugar(carbs), fat and salt. Pick one or two of those, and your brain will eventually get overwhelmed and you'll feel like washing your mouth out.
Pick all three, and the food never stops tasting good, and you'll eat until you physically have no room left.
Ill come out and say it, MSG can make a lot of things taste good as fuck 🤤
It's the secret ingredient in like every chip
Also probably why I'm craving Takis right now
Takes are the most addictive chip I've ever encountered, I don't know why but something about that combination of lime and heat is just top tier
It's the crunch, the zippy pow of spice and the MSG
THEY'RE GODDAMN DELECTABLE
Doritoes are hella MSG too, a very necessary component of the flavor.
I washed dishes as part of my main job for a five year stretch and it's taken me another 5 years to not be completely repulsed at the thought of doing dishes, and I hold a grudge against anyone who uses more dishes than is absolutely necessary.
When I worked doing overnight maintenance at a fucking Cracker Barrel the dishwasher area was the one place I wasn’t supposed to clean but god did I feel sympathy for them. Cleaning bathrooms sucked but at least it’s a one and done deal when you’re working overnight. And dudes shitting up their bathroom isn’t exactly a corruption of a Good Thing like with food mess.
The only "addictive chemicals" is the carefully crafted ratio of salt/sugar/fat to keep you wanting more.
What is the difference between addiction and enjoying something? Can you be addicted to video games, sex, movies, gambling, music, internet, not being cold, sparkling water, porn, rock climbing, a web forum?
that’s default
Come visit me in Russia some time!
But seriously, I remember reading discussion about whether video games can be an addiction and there was an attempt to define addiction as something more specific than that.
the medical definition is like when a compulsion to do something becomes detrimental to other aspects of life right?
Absolutely! (though perhaps not in the sense you propose) And it's not an accident. This article is about Cheetos , but it should be easy to carry it over to most fast food products
I dunno, if fast food wasnt so easy to get, would we be having this problem? There’s a lot to be said with the “over-and-done” nature of spending 3 mins most at a drive thru to get food, scarf down the empty meal in 5 minutes and go back to what we were doing.
It’s modern slop and it wouldnt surprise me if the addition is Pavlovian, cause it’ll be cheaper to operate that way.
unless you have a proper deep fryer at home most fast food places scratch that fried food itch
and its so much work geez, not to mention a bit dangerous on normal ranges
i cant imagine deep frying food for myself either; but that's what eating out is about--someone who gives no shits about your arteries cooks lol
I was always told that Starbucks puts more caffeine in their drinks to get you addicted but looking it up now it doesn't seem to be the case. They're the target of a class action suit alleging they don't put enough caffeine as the drinks get larger.
As others have mentioned, the combination of salt, sugar, and fat "hacks" your brain in ways beyond traditional, organic meals ever could, the same way our phones and porn and gambling does.
