Some food is designed so that you can't stop eating it. This is the true story of how it is made — and of the experiment that finally measured what it does to us.
Ten words and phrases in four activities. Say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Three words: an ingredient · appetite · a label. Say the right one, then reveal.
Read each part. Then answer the quick questions from memory before you check. Then discuss the question. (This is a story about how food is made — nobody is judging what's in your shopping basket.)
Many modern snacks were not invented by cooks. They were calculated by scientists. One of the most famous was an American called Howard Moskowitz. He studied psychology at Harvard, and in the 1970s and 1980s food companies paid him to answer one question: how much sugar, salt or fat makes food taste the best?
Moskowitz found that pleasure goes up as you add sugar — but only to a certain point. After that, the food becomes too sweet and people like it less. The highest point, just before it becomes too much, is the "bliss point". At this point, the food is very pleasant, but it doesn't make you feel full or satisfied. So you keep eating. Moskowitz spent years finding the bliss point for drinks, sauces and snacks.
His most famous job was for a spaghetti sauce that wasn't selling well. He tested the sauce on thousands of people and found something surprising. There wasn't one perfect sauce that everybody liked. People fell into groups: some liked it plain, some liked it spicy, and about a third of Americans wanted a sauce with big pieces of vegetable in it — "extra-chunky". Nobody sold a sauce like that. The company made one, and it earned hundreds of millions of dollars. Moskowitz's idea — there is no perfect product, only perfect products — is the reason why supermarkets today sell thirty different kinds of everything.
Other food scientists worked on other tricks: a crunch that sounds fresh, crisps that melt so fast your brain doesn't count them, and a careful mix of sugar, salt and fat so that you never get tired of the taste. These people weren't evil. They were doing their jobs well. They were paid to make people buy more and eat more. But nobody was paid to ask what all this food was doing to people's bodies. To answer that question, somebody needed a very different kind of experiment.
1. What is the bliss point?
2. What did Moskowitz discover with the spaghetti sauce, and how did it change supermarkets?
1. The amount of sugar, salt or fat that gives the most pleasure — enough to enjoy, but not enough to feel full, so you keep eating.
2. That people like different things, so there is no single perfect product. A third of people wanted an extra-chunky sauce. Now supermarkets sell many different versions of the same product.
For years, scientists noticed that people who ate a lot of ultra-processed food were more likely to be overweight or ill. But there was a problem. Poorer people eat more of this food, and poorer people also have more health problems for many other reasons. So maybe the food wasn't the real cause. Maybe it was poverty.
The term "ultra-processed" itself came from Brazil. A scientist in São Paulo called Carlos Monteiro noticed something strange: Brazilian families were buying less sugar and oil than before, but more people were becoming overweight. Why? Because the sugar and oil hadn't disappeared — they had moved from the kitchen into factory food. Monteiro created a system called NOVA, which puts food into four groups, from fresh food (group 1) to ultra-processed food (group 4). His big idea was this: don't just look at what is in food — look at what has been done to it. Not all scientists agree with him, even today.
In 2019, an American scientist called Kevin Hall ran an experiment to find out. Twenty adults lived in a hospital ward for four weeks. They couldn't leave, so every bite they ate was measured. For two weeks, they ate ultra-processed meals. For the other two weeks, they ate unprocessed meals. The two menus were carefully matched: they offered the same amount of calories, sugar, fat, salt and fibre. And the people could eat as much or as little as they wanted.
The result was clear. On the ultra-processed diet, the same people ate about 500 more calories every day. They ate faster, they didn't notice they were eating more, and they didn't even say the food tasted better. They put on weight. On the unprocessed diet, they lost weight. It was a small study, and Hall himself says we should be careful with it. But for the first time, an experiment showed that the food itself — not poverty, not willpower — made people eat more.
Today, more than half of what people eat in Britain and the USA is ultra-processed, and many studies connect this food with heart disease and diabetes. The food industry says that these products are safe and legal, and that people want them. Both things can be true. Each product may be safe on its own. The problem is what happens when most of your diet is made of them.
1. What strange thing did Monteiro notice in Brazil?
2. What happened in Kevin Hall's experiment?
1. Families were buying less sugar and oil, but more people were overweight — because the sugar and oil were now inside factory food.
2. Twenty people ate ultra-processed food for two weeks and unprocessed food for two weeks, as much as they wanted. On the ultra-processed food they ate about 500 calories more a day and gained weight. On the unprocessed food they lost weight.
Chile decided to fight back. By 2015, Chileans were drinking more sugary drinks than almost anyone in the world, and many children were overweight. In 2016, the country passed one of the strongest food laws ever. Unhealthy products had to carry big black warning labels on the front of the packet, shaped like a stop sign: HIGH IN SUGAR, HIGH IN CALORIES. Cartoon characters were banned from children's food — even the famous tiger disappeared from the cereal box. Junk food adverts were banned from children's TV, and the products were banned from schools.
The food companies said the law would be a disaster, and they fought against it. But the results were impressive. People bought about a quarter fewer of the sugary drinks with warning labels. Children saw the black labels and told their parents not to buy those products. And many companies changed their recipes, using less sugar and salt so that they didn't need a label at all. Soon more than ten other countries copied Chile's labels.
Other countries tried other ideas. Britain introduced a sugar tax on soft drinks in 2018 — and before it even started, most companies had already reduced the sugar in their drinks. Some doctors now say we should treat ultra-processed food a bit like cigarettes. Others say this goes too far: we don't need cigarettes, but we all need food. Still, there is one real similarity. In both cases, the companies knew exactly how their products affected the human body, and they left the health problems for someone else.
So what does this mean for you and me? If you can't stop at one crisp, it doesn't mean you are weak. It means an ordinary person is up against a team of professional food scientists. And willpower is not the best answer. It works better to change your habits and your home: what you buy, what you keep in the cupboard, and what you put where you can see it. Somebody is always designing what you eat. The question is: is anybody designing it for you?
1. Name three things that Chile's 2016 law did.
2. Why do some people compare ultra-processed food to cigarettes — and why do others disagree?
1. Any three: black warning labels on the front of packets; no cartoon characters on children's food; no junk food adverts on children's TV; no junk food in schools.
2. Similar: in both cases the companies knew how their products affected the body and didn't take responsibility for the health problems. Different: we don't need cigarettes, but everybody needs food.
When we talk about food, we talk about quantity all the time. In English, some nouns are countable (calories, snacks, eggs) and some are uncountable (sugar, salt, time). Each quantity word goes with one type — or with both.
Complete each sentence with much, many, little or few. Use each word once.
1. How sugar is there in a bottle of that sauce?
2. How ingredients are there in this cereal bar? I counted twenty-three!
3. There is very fibre in white bread, so it doesn't keep you full for long.
4. Very people read the whole label. Most just look at the picture.
1. much (sugar — uncountable) 2. many (ingredients — countable) 3. little (fibre — uncountable) 4. few (people — countable)
Choose little, a little, few or a few. Look at the start of each sentence — is the meaning positive or negative?
1. Good news: you only need ingredients to make a simple tomato sauce.
2. Bad news: children eat enough vegetables.
3. Good news: if you add lemon juice, you don't need so much salt.
4. Bad news: most working parents have time to cook on weekdays.
1. a few (countable, positive) 2. few (countable, negative) 3. a little (uncountable, positive) 4. little (uncountable, negative)
Use each word from the box once: much · many · few · a few · a little · less · fewer. Then read the report aloud.
We compared two shopping baskets. Basket 1 was full of ultra-processed food. There were far too chemicals on the labels, and there was too sugar in almost everything. Very of the products had ingredients that a grandmother would recognise.
Basket 2 had only simple things: vegetables, eggs, rice and olive oil. It had products than Basket 1, and, surprisingly, it cost money.
1. many 2. much 3. few 4. a few 5. a little 6. fewer 7. less
Remember: fewer products (countable) · less money (uncountable).
You'll use these words again in the Speak tab — Task C is about what's in your kitchen.
Everything in this story is true. Moskowitz's work was made famous by the journalist Michael Moss, who won a Pulitzer Prize. Kevin Hall's experiment is real, but small. And scientists still disagree about ultra-processed food — so it's worth looking at both sides.
Speak against the clock — and use quantity words carefully: too much, too many, very little, quite a few.
Retell the story in your own words. Use these steps: Moskowitz and the bliss point → the spaghetti sauce → crisps that vanish → Monteiro's discovery in Brazil → Hall's experiment and the 500 calories → Chile's black labels → the cigarette comparison → what we can do at home.
Use at least five quantity words and five key words (bliss point, ultra-processed, vanish, appetite, label, ingredient, craving, food desert, from scratch, moreish).
First, argue FOR the labels: think about Chile's results, children, and companies changing their recipes. Then argue AGAINST: think about freedom of choice, jobs, and the fact that labels don't make fresh food cheaper. Finally, say what you really think.
Describe a kitchen — yours or an imaginary one. What is there too much of? Too many of? Too little of? Which three products would fail the "grandmother test"? What two things would you change to eat better? Finally, tell us about one unhealthy food you love — and why you'll never give it up!
Or choose one of these: