The tricks companies use to make us addicted to unhealthy food

The tricks companies use to make us addicted to unhealthy food

‘The food system we have today is both a miracle and a disaster…” So begins the executive summary of the recently released National Food Strategy , commissioned by the Government in the face of a rapidly growing health crisis. Certainly the food manufacturers would like us to focus on the miracle. We have more choice than ever before: a supermarket in 1980 might have carried 8,000 products; a modern supermarket could stock 25,000 different foods. Tesco alone lists four dozen different sliced loaves. Our palates have never been more adventurous: 50 years ago, spaghetti was a curiosity. Now we compare brands of pomegranate molasses, squirt Thai sriracha on our noodles, and order Peruvian-style ceviche from street-food stalls. British food laws are among the strictest in the world, making our food some of the most thoroughly regulated. We ban growth hormones, have tight rules on antibiotic use and cleaner milk than the US. Plentiful, diverse, safe – that should mean healthy. Except we aren’t – far from it. One in four adults in Britain are obese, and nearly two thirds of adults and one in three children are overweight. The cost of this to the NHS is more than £6 billion