0:01 Okay, tell me if you find this relatable. Dinner is long digested, but you still want something. Nope. Suddenly, it's midnight and you're back at it, doing that thing that you swore you wouldn't do. You say no once again. But after 2:00 a.m., locking in gets harder. This time, you finally give in. Just a little taste. You tell yourself that you're slowly getting better. Except you give into the temptation. As you pick it all up, you tell yourself, "Don't do it. Don't do it. It's not worth it. You're going to regret it tomorrow. You can still put it back and feel good about yourself.
0:51 >> What you just saw is a battle. One part of you is thinking about tomorrow and how good you want to feel then. The other part is thinking about the crunch, the umami, the hit of satisfaction, the moment that taste lands. But what you might not know is that this battle is rigged. Look, I'm all for accountability. Your life is in your hands. You're the only one who can make the decisions you want to make. But the first step is understanding the battlefield. Because your opponent isn't just your weak willpower. It's a trillionoll industry that spent decades figuring out how to hack your biology, how to make saying no nearly impossible. You know, I myself constantly go through this battle and
1:37 winning it is no easy task. What really helped me though was digging into the history of food engineering and seeing how deeply big food companies have dug their claws into our brains. So, if you're someone fighting this uphill battle against cravings, or even if you're just curious about how food companies turn your brain into their ATMs, this video is for you. For the longest time, food companies cared about your tongue, about making something that tasted good and hit the spot. But at some point, that changed. They stopped trying to satisfy you and they started trying to hack you. And to understand when that shift began, we need to go back to 1969 because this is
2:23 where Howard Moskovitz comes in. So Moscowitz was a Harvard trained mathematician hired by the US Army to solve a strange problem. Soldiers were throwing away their ready to eat meals halfeaten no matter what they served. The military needed to know why. What Moscowitz discovered changed everything. It's called sensory specific satiety. When you eat flavors that are too bold and distinct, your brain gets overwhelmed and tells you to stop. It's an evolutionary mechanism meant to prevent overeating. But Moscowitz thought, what if you could bypass that mechanism? What if you could make flavors interesting enough to keep eating, but never distinct enough to trigger the stop signal? You could essentially make people eat forever. So for the next three decades, Moscowitz
3:09 optimized everything. Prego spaghetti sauce, Dr. peppers, soups, pickles, salad dressings, everything. And his experiments led him to discovering what's called the bliss point. A food tastes good because of a precise mathematical balance of salt, sugar, and fat. In Michael Moss' book, Salt, Sugar, Fat, he talks about how he found this out the hard way. So, if you ever made salt-free cornflakes and took a bite, all you taste is metal. And that's because salt masks the off notes, the metallic taste that comes from processing. Without it, you taste what this food actually is, an industrial byproduct. So to make it palatable or hyper palatable to be precise, you need astronomical amounts of salt, sugar, and fat. Change the amount of any one of
3:55 them, you have to adjust the others. Suddenly, a new profession was invented. Food engineering. If you want to see whether that's true for yourself, let's take you to the grocery store. First up, it's ata versus your regular instant noodles. Now, the ata noodles are indeed whole wheat and it does have lower fat. You think that's better for you, right? But it has more sugar and more sodium. In fact, a single serving exceeds 50% of your daily sodium intake. Next up, we have this thousand island dressing, which claims zero trans fat and less sugar. But compare it to this variant which has higher trans fat and sugar. And you will notice the healthier one has more sodium and more total fat.
4:42 Wait, this next one is my favorite. Sugar-free crackers. Because if you compare it with a good day biscuit, the sugar-free option has three times the salt. It's the same for veggie sticks and kuret for pop potato chips for multigrain breads is the same for almost everything. And you would know it too if you simply flipped the packet. And trust me, this little trick they play on you, it's just the tip of the iceberg. Let me ask you something. Do you actually know what ultrarocessed means? If not, don't worry. I'll explain it using your favorite snack, Cheetos. So, food scientists consider it to be one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet in terms of pure pleasure. Why? Because when you eat a Cheeto, it
5:28 dissolves instantly on your tongue. That's called vanishing caloric density. See, when something melts that quickly, your brain thinks you consume nothing. No calories are disturbed. So, you keep eating and eating until you're tilting an empty bag into your mouth, hunting for dust. Ultrarocessed foods take basic crops corn wheat potatoes and disassemble them into molecular components. Fiber here, starch there, fats, sugars. Then they glue it all back together. That's what happens in those big factories. They're basically breaking whole foods down to molecules and reconstructing them. That is where the ultra comes from. These foods are literally predigested. Your body doesn't have to work to break them down, which means your satiety signals never
6:14 properly fire, which means you never feel full, which means you keep eating. See the loop? And this leads to one of the wildest contradictions the human body can experience. You can have both obesity and malnourishment at the same time. All those calories find a home within you without the luggage of nutrition. And it goes beyond the ingredients. See, food is a multi-ensory experience. The look, the smell, the feeling on your fingers, even the sound. When you open a fizzy soda, notice those two distinct voices, the click and the tear. You know, sound engineers work specifically to perfect that. It's called sonic branding. Fretole had a $40,000
6:59 device that simulated chewing to test chip sounds. They found the perfect break point. 4 lb of pressure per square in. That's the perfect sound to get you addicted. These companies don't hire chefs anymore. They hire neuroscientists. And what they discovered was gold for marketing. Uni Liver even funded brain imaging studies, fMRI scans of people eating vanilla ice cream. They found it activated the orbital frontal cortex, the brain's pleasure center. The very same region that also lights up with drugs. And you know what they did with this research? They launched an official campaign, ice cream makes you happy. And you are starting to see the results everywhere now. Fake paneer made from vegetable oil and starch. No actual milk. Ice cream sandwiches that don't
7:46 melt in the sun just foam up and hold their shape. Chocolate bars with so little cocoa they legally have to be called chocolate flavored and not actual chocolate. Parmesan cheese packed with wood pulp fillers. Barely any real cheese at all. In fact, most honey you buy isn't even real honey. It's adulterated with sugar syrup or rice syrup or corn syrup. Who knows at this point? Now, you think it can't get worse than this, but well, it does. But before I take you there, we need to pause for a moment to show you guys something that's going to come in handy. We want to thank ODU, our partner for this video, as they help bring this story to life. ODO is an all-in-one enterprise management app which you can use to manage all your business needs like sales, accounting,
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9:17 description. Now back to the video. So that's the state of processed foods, not just in our country, but all over the world. And if you decide to just screw the junk, well, there's more traps waiting for you. Because these companies don't just profit from making you addicted, they profit from your shame about being addicted. Think about it, okay? You eat their food, you gain weight, you feel guilty, so you buy their diet products, most of which are just sneakily packaged lies. Now, you already saw how these products pretend to be healthy by replacing one harmful thing with another. But there's many other ways to make you think you're choosing healthy even when you're not. like this. Oats and almond cookie, which sounds wholesome, except when you flip it around, oats is not even the first
10:03 ingredient and almonds 1.8%. That is not an ingredient that's barely a sprinkle. Now, there's a few newer healthy snacks which are harder to see through, like this little scam artist. First, the pack is smaller and nutritional info is listed per 30 g instead of 100. But if you did the math, you will find out it has the same calories as a pack of Llays, and it costs 2 and 1/2 times more. Then there's every Jim Bro's favorite protein bars. Yes, they help you hit your protein goal, but look at what comes with it. Emulsifiers, additives, artificial flavoring, sugar alternatives, and those newer wafer versions are barely any better than a chocolate bar because they also have MADA and sky high saturated fat. So if
10:49 you're relying on these thinking they're clean, I'd reconsider. It's the same for fruit juices, for corn flakes, for nor soups, for everything, at least most of the time. You see, companies are required to be honest with us when it comes to their claims. But there is nothing stopping them from manipulating our lack of awareness and attention to detail against us. No regulations, literally nothing. So the industry has mastered something called the health halo. They slap words like protein, fiber, multigrain, natural, organic on the package and your brain ignores everything else. If the stretchy began with finding the bliss point, industrial food engineering truly culminated at the Pillsbury headquarters in Minneapolis on April 8th, 1999. 11 men gathered in a
11:36 conference room. The CEOs of Craft, Nabiscoco, General Mills, Proctor and Gamble, Coca-Cola, Mars. Together they controlled $280 billion in annual food sales. Michael Mud, a craft executive, stand up to present 114 slides. He tells them obesity has skyrocketed, type 2 diabetes is exploding, and the public is starting to point fingers at them. He says something remarkable. We are being linked to the tobacco industry. The same lawyers who took them down are coming for us. His proposal, pull back. Reduce salt, sugar, and fat. Stop marketing to kids. The room goes silent. Then Steven Sanger, CEO of General Mills, stands up
12:23 and what he says reveals everything about how these companies see us. He tells them he won't screw around with the company jewels, their formulas, just because guys in white coats are worried about obesity. Everyone else agreed. They walked out, took elevators to dinner, and nothing changed. The playbook, choosing profits over health, manufacturing doubt about the sciences, letting lawyers worry about consequences later. If this sounds familiar to you, it's because the tobacco industry had perfected it long ago. And in 1985, Philip Morris International bought General Foods. 3 years later, they acquired Craft Argent merged with Nabiscoco. So yeah, the cigarette companies literally owned the food
13:08 companies and all that sophisticated addiction knowledge, it transferred directly to your grocery store. But you know what's worse? For many of these companies, India is just a massive population market to exploit no matter the cost. In April 2024, an investigation by public eye examined 150 Nestle baby food products across 40 countries. What they found should enrage you. Nestle Cerillac infant cereal for babies 6 months and older. Contains 3 g of added sugar per serving in India. 7.3 g in Philippines, 6.8 g in Nigeria, 5.9 g in Seneagal. In
13:54 Switzerland, Germany, the UK, and France, zero. They are hooking six-month-old babies on sugar in developing countries while keeping European babies safe. And it's not just Nestle. Sprite contains 47 g of sugar per 330 mlin versus 19 g in Austria. Same brand, different standards. Why? Simple. Because they can. In Europe, there's something called the precautionary principle. Companies have to prove that ingredients are safe before they can use them. The burden is on them. In India, well, we have FSSAI, a regulatory body that, to put it diplomatically, struggles with efficiency. And I'm being generous by putting it diplomatically here. I'm sure you've heard of the recent OS scam. A
14:40 doctor fought for 8 years to ban fake OS, oral rehydration salts that could prove fatal in some cases. FSSAI finally banned it. Then the courts reversed the ban because the company argued FSSA approved it first so why ban now. This clear and inexcusable inefficiency protects the companies and leaves consumers in the dust. Our biggest spice brands MDH Everest are actually banned in Singapore and Hong Kong for traces of cancer causing pesticides. Here they are bestsellers. The result of these inefficiencies, India is now the diabetes capital of the world. 212 million diabetics and counting. ICMR estimates over half of India's total
15:26 disease burden, medical costs, hospitalizations, loss productivity is linked to junk food consumption. We're not a market, we are a lab. 1.4 billion test subjects with weak regulations. That is how a lot of these companies see us. And everyone dealing with addiction or obesity is one way or other affected by them. But even after all this, the engineering, the manipulation, the regulatory failures, people look at someone who's overweight and say, "Why don't you have any self-control?" The fitness industry built empires on shame. America literally has a reality TV show called The Biggest Loser. >> All my life I WANT TO BE THE BIGGEST LOSER. WORK ME, WORK me till the day I
16:13 die, >> which makes contestants eat 800 calories while burning 10,000. Even in India, we had a version of this called biggest loser gega. A study found watching just one episode increased viewers dislike of fat people. Now, social media amplifies it. The skinny talk hashtag accumulated 74,000 videos promoting 800 calorie diets before Tik Tok banned it. What I eat in a day videos have over 15 billion views and nearly 60% of creators have no qualifications in health or nutrition. Even in India, we're often exposed to the sentiment, whether it's through in-house content or through Western algorithms. Picture it like this, okay? You're in a boxing ring blindfolded. Your opponent, the food industry, armed
16:59 with neuroscience, billions in research, molecular manipulation. You try to brace for the punch, but then your own biology hits you. Sugar spikes and pleasure. Vanishing calories, confused satiety signals. You're on the mat trying to get up, trying to make better choices, and society delivers the knockout punch from the crowd. Why don't you have any willpower? If only they knew what's really going on with us. I interrupt this segment to share some important news with all of you. So 2 and a half years ago, we started a video editing school around the thesis that video editing and content creation are going to become long-term viable careers because as products become easier to build, distribution will become the mode
17:44 and people who know how to build distribution will have a lot of leverage. As of now, we have trained 3,500 students and turns out somewhere our thesis was right. Don't take my word for it. Check this out. Like I'm quite sure you also talk to your friends and family and definitely you talk about your career. Yeah. >> So what was that what is that conversation like now about >> it's very different now >> what what has changed >> since I'm a cinematographer I've gotten the opportunity to meet various founders biggest example serious we work with this branch we worked with Nvidia we work with Google >> video creation and now it has so and so million views of comments I think that dopamine hit makes me want to come to office every day >> parents if you talk to my friends they have seen it everyone's cool content
18:30 right now they've seen the I am really happy. Every day I wake up and like I'm going to do something creative. >> Not just the folks you saw just now, there are more. >> So yes, editing and making videos is a viable career option in 2025. You know, from creators to companies, you will see everyone is looking for an editor, a video producer, motion designer and a lot more new roles in Genai in content economy which are just emerging. I'm not exaggerating. We have more recruiters than students sitting for placements as of now and getting packages higher than engineering colleges. So if you're a student, a job seeker, someone who is looking to get into this industry, we can help. We're doing a free master class where we break down everything
19:15 about editing, video making, and a lot more. So check it out. It's absolutely free. And more importantly, it might help you pick up some useful content skills that can help with your career. Anyway, putting the link in description. See you there. Look at this graph. Different lines showing different age groups getting obese in America. Between 1960 and 1975, fairly steady, stable, right? Then suddenly mid 1970s, every line goes up. Every age, every demographic simultaneously. This is government data. So if you're blaming willpower, what you are proposing is that millions of people across every age bracket suddenly decided to become lazy at the exact same moment in history. That is not a reasonable explanation.
20:02 What happened in the mid70s is that high fructose corn syrup consumption increased over 1,000% between 1970 and 1990. Ultrarocessed foods took over the food supply and the bliss point became industry standard. In this video, I kept alluding to the tobacco industry, and that's very intentional. It's not just that they bought the food companies. It's not just that they transferred their playbook. Is that cigarette smoke takes 10 seconds to hit your brain. Meanwhile, sugar, it takes only 600 milliseconds, not even a full second. And yet, we treat tobacco addiction as a disease worthy of sympathy and intervention. We put strict regulations
20:48 and try and discourage the practice. Whereas we treat food addiction as a character flaw, the same tricks, the same manipulation, a faster delivery system, more consumers, including children, and somehow less accountability for the companies in power. That's not fair. A lot of the inability to fight cravings is not your fault. I mean, you were literally set up to fail, but at the same time, you're still the only one in control of your story. Until FSSAI gets better at its job, until governments place stricter limits on these companies, until they force companies to have large bold warnings of excess sugar, salt, or fat in the products, until the damn system changes, and it can change. We've seen it happen. But until then, it's on us to
21:36 weaponize this awareness. And it starts with a skill that's becoming increasingly important. Knowing how to read a label. Flip the package over. Look at the ingredients. If sugar's in the top three, if you cannot pronounce half of what's listed, at least now you know what you're signing up for. So, take a second to pause and really fight that impulse. That is where it starts. And if you can follow people who pull back the curtain, people like food farmer who exposed that bone vita was 50% sugar and forced mandles to reduce it by 15%. Which by the way is just the bare minimum on their part. But supporting these figures, fighting for change, helping spread awareness. All of that creates pressure and pressure
22:21 creates change. This is not about losing weight or getting fit or looking a certain way. It's about feeling like your decisions are your own. That's all. Everything else is just noise.
