In an article entitled The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food, which appeared in the February 24th issue of the NY Times Magazine, author Michael Moss exposes some rather disturbing facts about the industry that has brought us everything from Cheetos, evidently:
one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure.” He ticked off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say more. But the one he focused on most was the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly said. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it . . . you can just keep eating it forever.”
To Lunchables, in all their ways, shapes and forms. Of course, it was all about marketing this stuff:
This idea — that kids are in control — would become a key concept in the evolving marketing campaigns for the trays. In what would prove to be their greatest achievement of all, the Lunchables team would delve into adolescent psychology to discover that it wasn’t the food in the trays that excited the kids; it was the feeling of power it brought to their lives. As Bob Eckert, then the C.E.O. of Kraft, put it in 1999: “Lunchables aren’t about lunch. It’s about kids being able to put together what they want to eat, anytime, anywhere.”
Now, the industry has known for a long time about the growing epidemic of obesity, heart disease and various other ailments associated with a high fat, high salt, high sugar, etc. diet.
And I'm wondering - are they just as culpable as the tobacco industry was in their targeting of kids when marketing their products?
Does anyone on this board use lunchables?