♪ ♪
Well, if you've ever
found yourself saying,
"I just couldn't
help myself,"
when you ate too much
of the wrong food,
you just might be right.
A lot of people put a lot
of work into making sure
we keep on eating.
As our health reporter
Kelly Crowe discovered,
it's a highly competitive,
highly secretive industry
with one goal: food that
is simply irresistible.
♪ ♪
Man: They're trying to increase
 their share of your stomach.
♪ ♪
 And increase the amount
 of profit they're making
 off the food you eat.
I ate to the point
that it hurt to move
and I would just lie on my bed
and wish I was dead.
[crunching]
Man: These companies
 rely on deep science
 and pure science to understand
 how we're attracted to food
 and how they can make their
 foods attractive to us.
[crunching]
Kelly Crowe: There's science
 behind that crunch.
 Yogurt feels that way
 in your mouth for a reason.
 The food industry is even
 researching the connection
 between the taste receptors
 on your tongue
 and the corresponding chemical
 reaction in your brain.
 The result: carefully
 engineered combinations
 of salt, sugar, fat,
 and chemicals
 deliberately designed
 so you can't eat just one.
[crunching]
 Michael Moss spent four years
 investigating the science
 behind processed food.
Michael:
 I was totally surprised.
 I spent time with
 the top scientists
 at the largest companies
 in this country,
and it's amazing how
much math and science
and regression analysis
and energy they put into
 finding the very perfect amount
 of salt, sugar and fat
 in their products that
 will send us over the moon.
Kelly: A search through
 a database of scientific papers
 and food industry
 patents reveals
 the extent of the science
 behind food engineering.
 Chemistry, physics, biology:
 all commandeered
 into the service of making
 profitable food.
 Here's a process for enhancing
 the cheese flavour
 without the cheese,
 where starting materials
 are proteins and fats;
 which means the amount
 of expensive cheese
 can be reduced substantially.
And if they can replicate
that chemical reaction
that may happen on
your tongue or an aroma,
they can simulate
the taste of something
without it being
at all real.
Kelly: Bruce Bradley
 knows first hand
 what goes on inside
 the food industry;
 a former executive at several
 large food companies,
 he's now a writer
 and industry critic.
Bruce: There were certainly
 times that I felt uncomfortable
 or troubled by
 what I was doing,
and I think that's ultimately,
you know,
one of the reasons
why I left the industry.
 And then you see
 trends like obesity
 and health issues
 that are increasing,
 mainly driven by
 the food that we eat.
It was hard for me
not to just
take a more thorough assessment
of what I was doing.
Kelly: The food industry
 is extremely secretive,
 competitive, and proprietary.
 It took years and
 hundreds of interviews
 before Michael Moss
 could finish his book.
Michael: This was like
 a detective story for me.
 Getting inside the companies
 with thousands of pages
of inside documents,
and getting their scientists
and executives to reveal
to me the secrets
of how they go at this.
Kelly: What did he find? That
 the food processing industry
 rests on three pillars:
 salt, sugar, and fat.
Michael: These are the holy
 trinity of processed foods.
And again, when they hit
the perfect amounts,
they call it
the "bliss point" for sugar,
the "mouth feel" for fat,
the "flavour burst" for salt;
they know that their products
will be irresistible.
♪ ♪
[crunching]
Salt, sugar, and fat
in combinations
nature never intended.
And increasingly, scientists
agree that there is evidence
that these highly
palatable foods
can be addictive.
Pat: Yeah, well for me,
 I'll be spooning or reaching
 or whatever,
 and I'll be thinking,
"I've got to stop, I've got
to stop, I've got to stop,"
and I just don't stop.
Kelly: Her name is Pat,
 and she's a food addict.
I was desperate when
I was a food addict,
it was really,
really devastating
and I felt powerless and
ashamed and it was horrible.
Kelly: Her kitchen
 is a battleground:
 every meal a challenge
 to remember that for her,
 even a taste of sugar
 can set her back.
Pat: Seeing food
 will trigger it,
 advertising for
 food will trigger it.
These foods are so,
so addictive,
so appealing.
TV Announcer: Every cookie
 is crammed with joy.
There are many
food addicts who say
that long after the food
stopped causing us joy,
long after it started
causing us misery,
we still couldn't stop.
How about one
of those chips?
Just one?
So it becomes hardwired
and it's very hard to overcome.
TV Announcer: Betcha...
And while the industry
hates the word addiction
more than any other word,
the fact of the matter is
that their research
has shown them
that when they hit
the very perfect amounts
 of each of those ingredients,
 they'll send us over the moon.
 That their products
 will fly off the shelf,
 we'll eat more,
 we'll buy more,
 and as they are companies,
 they will make more money.
We're activating
those limbic structures...
Kelly: Francis McGlone
 is a neuroscientist.
 As part of a BBC program,
 he put a British chef
 into a brain imaging machine
 and fed him chilli.
Man: Every 38 seconds,
 Ashley had a drop of chilli oil
 squirted on his tongue.
Kelly: And watched as
 the heat from the chilli
 peppers
 triggered a release of feel
 good chemicals in the brain.
The consequence of
that low level of pain
is that it floods the brain
with its own natural opiates.
Kelly: Francis McGlone
 was a pioneer.
 One of the first
 neuroscientists to work
 in the food industry.
 He spent ten years doing
 neuroscience for Unilever,
 one of the world's
 largest food companies.
As a basic neuroscientist, I was
able to look at the mechanisms
that basically drove preference
for various types of food.
Kelly: Using neuroscience,
 Unilever made headlines
 with this finding: ice cream
 tickles the brain.
 Just one spoonful lights up
 the happy zones of the brain
 in clinical trials,
 the company reported.
 This is the other part
 of the body that fascinates
 food scientists:
 the mouth.
 The way food breaks
 between the teeth;
 the pressure of the bite force;
 the sound of the crunch.
Chris: 
 Partly, it's the noise.
 The noise, of course
 amplified by the fact
that your jawbone is
connected to your years,
and you really hear that crunch
quite loudly as you bite.
But it's also the physical
requirement to chew on something
and to crunch it.
Just distracts you,
it pulls your mind onto
what you're eating.
Kelly: Chris Lukehurst is
 a food industry consultant
 who helps companies 
 come up with foods
 that are what
 he calls "moreish"--
 in other words,
 make you want more.
Chris: They want you,
 at the end of each product,
 to reach for the next one
 and put it in again.
And they often achieve that by
having a very intense taste hit
right at the front
of the mouth,
and then it dies off
very quickly.
And so by the time
you've finished each mouthful,
you're looking to refind
that taste that you've lost.
Kelly: The shape of the food
 is also important.
 Chocolate should not
 have sharp edges.
Absolutely, we're looking for
chocolate to be comforting,
to be a really pleasant, lovely
experience in the mouth.
Um, melt is a very soft,
soft experience,
and if it's got sharp corners,
you're really spoiling that
and actually setting the
consumer on edge slightly
 before they get
 the melt.
Kelly: Food scientists
 know what it takes
 to trigger the brain
 to stop eating:
 they call it:
And that's an expression
that says when foods have
one overriding flavour,
if it's attractive,
it'll be really attractive
to us initially,
but then we'll get tired
of it really fast.
And so these companies
make a concerted effort
to make their foods not bland,
but really well blended.
Kelly: And why can't
 you stop at just one?
 It's called:
Vanishing caloric density
applies to those things
like Cheetos that melt
in your mouth,
and what happens is then
that your brain gets fooled
into thinking the calories
have vanished,
and you're much more apt
to keep eating
before the brain
sends you a signal,
"Hey, you've had enough."
[crunching]
[chatter]
Kelly: Welcome to
 the sensory sciences lab
 at the University of Guelph.
Lisa: Can one person from each
group come here for a minute?
This is teaching the students
how to set up
a sensory test. So all
the students in this class
are learning the basics of
conducting sensory evaluation
research, because it's not...
It's not as simple
as eating a food.
They are different
in an ingredient,
and what we're looking
for is to determine
which one is preferred
or accepted by people.
So, um...
in this case,
it's actually a different
sodium level.
 So which one did
 you like better?
I liked the second
one better.
 The salty one?
The saltier one, yep.
Kelly: Because these
 products must be able
 to sit on the shelves 
 for months,
 many of the ingredients
 have nothing to do with taste
 but act as preservatives 
 and chemicals
 to control the appearance
 and texture.
 And a series of ingredients
 known as flavour enhancers
 to trick the brain into tasting
 something that isn't there.
There's tremendous amounts
of money spent behind creating
tastes and smells that feel
real, but in reality,
are completely artificial.
Kelly: Because without
 flavour enhancement,
 no one would eat it.
It would taste horrible.
You would just, you know,
you'd want to spit it out.
Kelly: One food company made
 a special batch of crackers
 for Michael Moss to taste
 without any salt at all.
It was a god awful experience
tasting those things.
Normally, I can eat
 Cheez-Its all day long,
but the Cheez-Its
without the salt,
I couldn't even
swallow them.
They stuck to
the roof of my mouth.
Kelly: A tour of
 the grocery aisle reveals
 that something is changing:
 suddenly, cookies boast
 health claims;
 chips have whole grain
 and fibre.
If the food industry can
find a way to market it
and make money off of it,
I'm sure they will.
But if it long-term is
decreasing the amount of food
that they can sell, I don't
see it as being an avenue
that they'll go down.
Kelly: So whether lower
 in salt, sugar, or fat,
 higher in fibre and grains;
 containing real fruit
 or baked with
 real vegetables;
 you will be back
 for more.
 The food industry
 depends on it.
 Kelly Crowe,
 CBC News, Toronto.
