Jays potato chips has had the slogan "Can't stop eating 'em" for as long as I can remember. Lay's potato chips (no relation) had the slogan of "betcha can't eat just one."
This goes back well before food science tried to find the "bliss point" as profiled in "The Extraordinary Science of Alluring Junk Food" in The New York Times and on the Colbert Report's "Thought for Food."
The article, from Michael Moss, notes the careful work done by food companies to produce "complex formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don't have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating."
Colbert poked some fun at that using Tostitos scoop chips. He professes to being able to eat just one chip out of a huge bowl of Tostitos. Feeling very proud of himself for eating one chip, he proceeds to bring out an oversized chip as his "second chip." And since these chips are designed for dipping, Colbert scoops up the smaller chips as the "dip" and eat the chips.
At the end of the show, Colbert has the bowl of chips in front of him, running the chips through his hands but not actually eating one of them.
Food companies have always wanted us to eat and drink lots of their products; the difference is that the science is better. Anecdotal evidence has skyrocketed that consuming high-fructose corn syrup causes you to eat more. And if those salty snacks are designed to get you to eat even more of them, then washing it down with high-fructose corn syrup kicks in the cycle.
Colbert starts out the segment in an attack on New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the impending drink size bans because Colbert thinks Bloomberg thinks people can't control what goes into their mouths "Well, he's wrong. We can control our mouths, or at least, the snack food scientists can."
"Vanishing caloric density" is a popular term describing the ennui of eating something with taste yet that feels like you aren't consuming a whole lot of calories. While I can't say I thought of that at the time, I do see that when I experimented with Flamin' Hot Cheetos. I loved the taste in the first few bites. After all, I grew bored with the taste, but still kept eating them.
Snack foods are supposed to be fun, a loose relationship between human and processed food. Snack foods aren't supposed to be your friend. Colbert and his writers came out with a Doritos flavor that parodies finding that bliss point: Blazin' Buffalo Bottomless Pit of Unfulfilled Longing.
The best solution is to eat foods that provide taste where a little bit goes a long way toward fulfilling what it is that you need. A little bit of Gruyere, a cheese can is higher in fat, can be better for you than a pile of low-fat mozzarella cheese.
Snacking can be fun as long as you aren't using the food for solace. Food is not a therapist. Food is food. That really is a Thought for Food.
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