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These food industry trends can defeat
your weight loss goals


We can link the growing rates of obesity with dangerous food industry trends. These trends  have developed over the past few decades. Sadly, consumer focus groups and food company greed fueled the trends.
















Focus groups

A focus group is just a small group of people. A company or organization brings them together to learn their opinions of a new product or advertisement. Before there were focus groups, a company would create a
product, share it with a few family members and employees, and then put it on the market. Sometimes it was a success and sometimes it flopped.

A prominent sociologist at Columbia University created the the first focus groups.  Food companies soon began using them to test recipes.  Food industry trends now show that companies spend millions of dollars testing recipes and food advertisements on focus groups.

Finding our bliss points

Food companies know that consumers love the taste of sugar. They add more and more sugar to a recipe until the focus group finally says the food is too sweet.

Companies then reduce the sugar content slightly so the food contains as much sugar as possible without triggering the "too sweet" reaction. Food scientists call this amount of sugar the "bliss point".

They determine the bliss points for fat and salt the same way. To learn the bliss points for each food, manufacturers create dozens of different versions of a single recipe. They manipulate the ingredients to get exactly the right mixture of sugar, fat, and salt in each product. The goal is to drive our taste buds crazy.

Layers of flavor

Once companies get us to crave the taste of a food, they want us to eat large amounts of it. They make flavors even more intense by "layering" the sugar, fat, and salt. For example, they might mix sugar into a processed food, and also coat the surface of the food with sugar.

They begin with a high fat food and first saute it in oil. Then they bread and deep fry it. They sell it as a frozen product. Restaurants or consumers buy it and fry it again before serving. There are four or more layers of fat in the food by the time you eat it.

Companies also distribute salt through several layers of food.

Easy to eat

Another way to get us to eat more is to make food easy for us to eat. We can quickly chew and swallow foods that are made of ground, pureed, or powdered ingredients. Machinery "chews" the food for us mechanically, so it seems to melt in our mouths.

Companies also remove fiber to make foods easier for us to eat. The problem is, fiber makes food chewy, and chewing helps satisfy our hunger. Fiber also satisfies us because it fills our stomach with fewer calories. When foods don't satisfy our hunger drive, we overeat and gain weight. Learn more about high fiber foods and weight loss.
 
The profit motive

Food companies and restaurants want us to overeat. Their advertisements say they care about our health, but this is not true. They only care about the profits they can make by selling us more food.

Their ads manipulate our minds and desires.  They describe the most exciting new food products. They show us colorful pictures of foods dripping with cheese. They encourage us to see eating as entertainment. They want us to eat for pleasure and fun instead of eating to satisfy our
hunger. This is how they maximize profits.

Another of the profit-oriented food industry trends is to use low quality ingredients. They use white flour because it is cheaper than whole grain flour. They use inexpensive high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar. They use palm oil or partially hydrogenated oils because they give food a longer shelf life. Less spoilage means more profits.


Food industry trends and politics

The meat and dairy industries are rich and powerful. They influence nutrition policy at the highest levels of government. For example, many of the nutrition experts who set government nutrition standards come from the animal food industry. That is why guidelines often make it appear that dairy products and meat are essential foods. They are not.

The sugar industry also influences government policy. For example, the current guidelines from the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine say we can eat up to 25% of our calories from added sugars. Can you imagine?

That is one fourth of our daily calorie intake from sugar. No responsible nutritionist would advocate such a thing. The World Health Organization resisted sugar industry pressure. WHO recommends no more than 10% of calories from sugar. Good for them!

How to break free 

You can escape the health dangers of these food industry trends. First you must eliminate all harmful foods from your diet for 21 days. Eat vegetables, beans, fruit, and whole grains in their natural form. Your tastes will change and you will begin to enjoy simple foods. Follow our vegan weight loss plan closely and you will lose weight without dieting.

Vegan food companies

Once your tastes change, you will be in control of your eating. You may want to eat processed vegan foods on special occasions. Some vegan companies use whole foods and organic ingredients. They try to create healthy products, but they have to make the food tasty enough that people will buy it. Read nutrition labels to check fat and sodium levels.

Many vegetarian companies that began operating decades ago are no longer privately owned. Their founders got older and they eventually sold out to big corporations.


Read packages and learn who made your vegan food. When you eat processed vegan foods, support small vegetarian companies.




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