DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Kim Severson’s article on the obesity crisis, Perils of portion distortion, contains the answer to a question that’s bothered me for most of my life. This answer will tell you something unpleasant about capitalism — something you might have already figured out if you ever stopped to think about it.

Let’s ease into it with some surprising test results:

Brian Wansink, a professor who founded the Food and Brand Lab at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign… took to a Chicago-area theater and handed 161 moviegoers coupons for free popcorn and a drink. One group was given fresh, hot popcorn in medium and large sizes. The other group received 14-day-old popcorn, also in medium and large buckets.

People who received the larger buckets, whether stale or fresh, ate up to 61 percent more popcorn than those who got the smaller buckets.

Quality makes no difference: if there’s more to eat, people will eat it, regardless of what it tastes like. Why am I repulsed by this? Because I do the same thing. I’ve gotten what appears to be 2-week-old popcorn at the local movie house. The staleness doesn’t stop me from eating the whole cubic yard of it. It’s as if I’m thinking “It’s going to get better, maybe farther toward the bottom.” Gad.

The popcorn study yielded another result: The fresh-popcorn subjects ate less than the stale-popcorn subjects. The researchers theorized that “given better-tasting food, people will still eat more if given more, but they’ll slow down sooner because they feel satisfied sooner.”

This theory is the key to the question I’ve been wondering about since I was old enough to eat packaged snacks (in America, this means age three). The question is: in any seasoned snack, why do 99% of the chips (or pretzels or whatever) taste so bland? You’ve probably had the experience of pawing through a bag of Doritos or whatever, looking for the chip with the extra-heavy coating of spices. Surely I can’t be the only one.

The insidious answer: if the food is lousy, people eat more! Eating more means buying more! Buying more means better profits! Ironically, in this diseased society, an inferior snack will outsell a good one. As my friend Terry used to say, “Chew on that while you eat your lunch.”

This is so loathsome I’ve had to italicize part of it:

Peter Meehan, head of Newman’s Own Organics… said food manufacturers walk a fine line when it comes to making snacks that satisfy, yet keep people coming back for more. He said it’s common practice for food manufacturers to pull back a little on flavorings in some foods so consumers will not be completely satisfied with a small amount.

“If you put too much coating or flavor on a chip, you say, ‘Hey — that’s good. I’m done. I’m satisfied.’ And so you don’t reach back into the bag for more.”