Instead of regulating everyone's sugar intake

[sir pball]

198. That's hardly a new eeeeevil corporate thing, they've just industrialized it

After I got bored of the paperwork that being a chemist involves I went to one of the best culinary schools in the country and trust me, the big food conglom-os aren't doing anything new. It was routine to get dressed down for not having put enough butter or salt in a dish, it "feels too thin" or "tastes flat" - and the amounts we use in fine dining would make McDonald's blush. As your book says it makes perfect biochemical sense, we're programmed to crave calorie-dense foods, but the only thing the food giants have done is formalized the amounts.

The overall quality of our basic foodstuffs is much much higher indeed, but that's not the only or even major reason why food in a high-end restaurant tastes better than cheap commercial crap. It's because it's absolutely LOADED with fat and salt; the shortribs where I work right now are glazed with a concoction that's literally half butter whisked into the thick, salty, reduced braising liquid. It incorporates perfectly, you have no idea the dark, shiny, velvety unctuous, massively flavorful sauce has close to three tablespoons of butter and a teaspoon of salt in a single order. And the potatoes they're on top of, well, eight large Idahos get a pound of butter, a quart of cream and about half a cup of salt for a total of 10-12 orders' worth. I suspect if we had it analyzed you'd be better off with a Double Quarter Pounder.