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Me on food
Children often prefer greasy, soft, bland, sweet food. "Have you ever heard a 10-year-old complain that the sauce was not sufficiently complex?" he asked. "You have families going to places like McDonald's simply because the kids want them."
And then Victor Niederhoffer chimed in. Here is the full story, from today's New York Sun.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on September 12, 2006 at 03:44 PM | Permalink
Comments
Kids food preferences are instinctive and evolved. They like sweet, salt and fat.
1. Sweet because the only natural sugar is in fruit (honey is very rare); 2 Salt because it is essential for life yet rare in the environment we evolved in; 3. Fat because it is the densest source of energy, and wild animals have very little subcutaneous fat anyway (most of the fat in game animals is in cell membranes, and is the 'healthy' kind of fat).
Other tastes are aquired and cultural, and the less instinctively appealing, the higher in status: for example coffee and leaf vegetables are bitter because full of toxins, Stilton cheese is putrid, people have to learn to enjoy dry wines etc.
'Junk' food is engineered to appeal to our evolved food preferences for sweet, salty and fatty food. This isn't a bad thing, especially if you want kids to finish their food, but we obviously need to learn to resist our inclinatino to 'pig out' on junk food three times a day every day, just as we have to resist the desire to spend all our waking ours reading blogs....
Posted by: Bruce G Charlton at Sep 12, 2006 4:35:24 PM
Me on Food: As an European in the US, a humbling moment has been to eat on the US.
Even though many natives do eat very bad food, the opportunities for good eating are excellent. It's not Brasil, but its certainly better than most of Europe. France and Italy do have better food, but they lose, major time, on price/quality-ratio.
Posted by: luispedro at Sep 12, 2006 4:48:20 PM
I've often wondered hwere the need for sour taste in food comes from. Salt: important nutrient. Sweet: carbohydrate calories. Bitter: poison. Savory: protein. FAt: calories. What nutritional need is satisfied by vinegar or lemon juice?
Posted by: dan at Sep 12, 2006 4:51:07 PM
So, older people worry about
weight. Hence, they move against
fatty and sweet foods that growing
kids need and like.
Regarding MacDonald's, their
french fries have long been better
than those in most fad food places,
not that this is all that fancy a
cuisine, despite the idiot boycott
after the Iraq war started (and the
fact that the darned things are
really Belgian in origin anyway).
Another thing that MacDonald's
should be praised for, and it was
probably the key to its rise to
enormity, is the cleanliness of the
place. That was Ray Kroc's great
innovation, as before then "fast
food" places, to the extent they
were fast at all (another Mac innovation)
were "greasy spoons" that had real
sanitary problems. Kroc reportedly
went around anonymously, swooping
in on unsuspecting outlets and would
run his finger across the counter.
Any grease? End of franchise.
BTW, despite this semi-praise, I only
eat their stuff on the road or in
airports occasionally. Not my spoiled
style, generally.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Sep 12, 2006 5:08:43 PM
and how Hungarian food was still the best cuisine in Eastern Europe, partly because Hungary never really abolished the free market.
As a Hungarian, I beseech you to expound on this. With regards to the changes in Hungarian food pre-1989 and post-1989, take a gander at this piece:
http://www.pestiside.hu/archives/dining_news_iii_a_remembrance_of_paprikas_csirke_past001965.php
Posted by: Varangy at Sep 12, 2006 5:09:29 PM
How much do we really know about the forces dringing the evolution of complex traits? Very little, and it is extremely difficult to infer these forces post hoc. Most of the highly assured statements are, then, statements of personal views only (cf. the openning sentence of Pride and Prejudice). It is at least as likely that the taste for sweet and sour co-evolved because the right balance of the two indicate optimmum freshness. The variety of children's tastes suggests any simpler explanation will fail. The comments remind me of someone who tried to argue that comfort food must necessarily be bland, etc and part of ones cultural background. Hence, I must be wrong in choosing Rendang Daging as a comfort food. The confidence with which others correct my tastes for me is humbling.
As for the kneejerk conservative defense of McDonald's, you might ask why bother. The food is not good, but not very bad in some very specific sense, so the cheapness and easy of purchase become dominant factors. Enough said, surely.
Posted by: am at Sep 12, 2006 5:15:30 PM
If America's bland food is often 'wielded as a stick against capitalism' then surely a corresponding dig at Russia's pre-glasnost cuisine is in order - or the use of MSG in China? And if the French or Italian rural market economy is the comparison then Ireland pre 'Celtic tiger' should also be thrown into the mix. Irish food was rarely tasty until very recently.
It seems to me that the overriding cause of what is seen as American food being of low nutrient value is that Americans embraced convenience food more than many other nations. The industrialisation of food production has been taken further in the US than most other places, and earlier.
PS I don't have the stats to hand but I know that the French are one of the biggest per capita users of MacDonals - more so than the UK. Perhaps they have the right balance - widely enjoying fast food as a rare change from more nourishing fayre, or maybe it's because they serve alcohol in French MacDonalds...
Posted by: Nick at Sep 12, 2006 6:00:22 PM
We've been debating at U.S. Food Policy whether McDonald's could offer better food -- tastier, healthier, more environmentally sound -- even if it wanted to, or if instead there is something about the franchise corporate structure for such a business that forbids good healthy food.
Posted by: Parke at Sep 12, 2006 6:00:54 PM
Humans generally like to start with simple things and gradually increase complexity.
Children like simple things: simple food, simple music, simple books, simple movies.
Simple food is typically either sweet, salty, fatty, doughy, or easy to eat.
Posted by: Giovanni at Sep 12, 2006 6:08:27 PM
MacDonald's in other countries is quite something
else compared to the US. Thus, in France, MacDonald's
is one place you can go into and use a rest room.
In Moscow, when it first opened on Pushkin Square, it
was this great center of the new capitalism and considered
quite a chic place to go. This has passed by now,
although it still has that very prime location.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at Sep 12, 2006 6:10:18 PM
Childern have trouble chewing most of the time because almost as soon as they get a set of baby teeth they start loosing them to get aldult teeth. Therefore soft is good as well as sweet,salty and fat.
Posted by: joan at Sep 12, 2006 6:53:39 PM
Mickey D's fries were fantabulous as a child, then then health nazis got ahold of them.
The fries now are bleh.
Posted by: Sandy P at Sep 12, 2006 10:09:49 PM
I think americans eat the unheathy fast food becouse it is most aviable and with the buying power of the big fast food chains it is cheeper to eat the unhealty stuff than the healthy. Ithink if compaines agresaviley marketed heather food even at a higher price most americans would chose the heathy way. But untill then many americans will chose the unheathy way. If other countries had the same options as we do in the way of fastfood I think they would eat just like us.
Posted by: Matthew at Sep 12, 2006 10:28:02 PM
Fastfood is what it is fast food. Most days I am hungry when I get off work at 8pm and I don't want to drive home then pull out what to make and then fixit then eat at 9-9:30 it is just so much quicker and efficiant to swing in to the local drive thru. I think alot has to do with how much you consume,and what your matabolism is like. I am only a 170lbs and I eat fast food 4 nights a week. I have 3 big sloppy burgers with every thing on them and extra large fri drizzled in manays and ketchup. Now if that is unhealthy as it gets then why have I not gotten huge like some people that eat less then half I eat. Maybe it helps that I run a mile 3 days a week. Not walk I run the full mile if I have to stop I stop but don't walk just quick catch my breath breaks, then I run. I think that may have something to do with the over weight people just don't have the activity in life to each unhealty foods?
Maybe I am wrong?
Posted by: Kris at Sep 12, 2006 11:44:30 PM
Re: Tyler's comment about "foie gras and French cheese for 30 days in a row"
Too bad McDonald's didn't sponsor a counterpoint to "Super Size Me": Enlargez-Moi Beaucoups
Posted by: Gordon Mohr at Sep 13, 2006 12:39:50 AM
This subject reflects on the past court cases brought out about the Mcdonalds corporation and its affect on kids and their diets. The case was discussing how two young girls had gained excessive weight and were both diagnosed with diabetes and heart problems due to this food. The Judge made an excellent point though in stating that it is not McDonalds Fault that they were over weight just for the mere fact that Mcdonalds forced there food on no one and they had the freedom of choice in where they should purchase their food from.
Posted by: Jacob Benson at Sep 13, 2006 1:50:59 AM
This subject reflects on the past court cases brought out about the Mcdonalds corporation and its affect on kids and their diets. The case was discussing how two young girls had gained excessive weight and were both diagnosed with diabetes and heart problems due to this food. The Judge made an excellent point though in stating that it is not McDonalds Fault that they were over weight just for the mere fact that Mcdonalds forced there food on no one and they had the freedom of choice in where they should purchase their food from.
Posted by: Jacob Benson at Sep 13, 2006 1:51:23 AM
dan -
Pure speculation on my part, but perhaps a taste for sour arose to induce consumption of foods rich in vitamin C.
Posted by: Christopher Rasch at Sep 13, 2006 5:34:27 AM
May be kids know something we don't? Also I remember reading once something about preferences for food flavors being related to time of weaning. Kids weaned too early preferred savory stuff and those weaned too late preferred sweet or milky items. Or perhaps it was the other way round...
Posted by: Stuart at Sep 13, 2006 6:20:07 AM
Americans are becoming more obese everyday! reasons are the greasy junk food is cheaper
and a majority are lazy and go for the quickest most efficient way to fill their hunger.
I feel it is the parents responsibility to put their foot down and limit what their child
eats. I feel a child should eat fruit before a nice bowl of sugar cereal. I notice
families who are wealthier tend to be able to purchase all organic. It would be nice if
the prices were lower for organic. Speaking as a college student its hard to afford the
healthy life when being surrounded by grease. One thing that upsets me is when i hear
that young chilren are drinking pop like coke and it shouldnt even ben introduced to
a child at a young age. We need to encourage fitness and eating healthier so we can
make a complete turn around of the American diet.
Posted by: renee at Sep 13, 2006 8:53:10 AM
Regarding: "The Judge made an excellent point though in stating that it is not McDonalds Fault that they were over weight just for the mere fact that Mcdonalds forced there food on no one and they had the freedom of choice in where they should purchase their food from."
Actually, the fascinating part of that Judge Sweet's decision was his warning to McDonald's that a future suit might succeed if it turns out that the company has hidden information about it's products and their healthfulness, much as tobacco companies hid their knowledge about addictive properties of nicotine: "For instance, Chicken McNuggets, rather than being merelychicken fried in a pan, are a McFrankenstein creation of various elements not utilized by the home cook." That doesn't leave McDonald's entirely unscathed.
http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/mcdonalds/plmnmcd12203opn.pdf
Posted by: Parke at Sep 13, 2006 11:40:05 AM
Isn't it possible too that our tastes change with age? We often talk as though the only natural/in-born prefs we have are sweet, crunchy, fatty, etc, and that every other taste is "cultural" or "learned." That might certainly be partly true, but entirely so? With age, my preferences and tastes have definitely changed. I pretty uninterested in sweetness, appreciate fattiness in spare ways. I like bitter, acid and vingegar are a joy, and the smoke and harshness of Scotch I'd hate to have to give up. To some extent, I needed to be introduced to these experiences, but to a much larger extent they're preferences that I've grown into. A thing about the fast-food places is that they're catering to infantile tastes -- harmlessly so, from one point of view. But from another isn't it fair to say that, in ruthlessly exploiting and mining infantile preferences, they're keeping many people in a state of eternal infantilism?
Posted by: Michael Blowhard at Sep 13, 2006 12:57:02 PM
Michael Blowhard, you are correct that tastes change with age. Here's the explanation the Kid's Health website provides to its youthfuil readers:
"People are born with about 10,000 taste buds. But as a person ages, some of his or her taste buds die. (An old person may only have 5,000 taste buds!) That's why some foods may taste stronger to you than they do to an adult."
http://www.kidshealth.org/kid/body/tongue_noSW.html
Perhaps it's not that kids prefer bland food. Instead, adults just suffer from years of tastebud abuse. I'm certain that five decades of gumbo and beer had some impact on my digestive tract - and on my brain as well.
Posted by: JohnDewey at Sep 13, 2006 2:41:20 PM
Another explanation for why tastes change as we age:
"Scientists also tell us that as we get older, the olfactory bulb in the brain responsible for processing smell becomes smaller. In addition, the patch of receptors in our nose that sends information to the brain begins to thin and spread out, and may be less effective at capturing scents. Getting older means that smells become more blunt and difficult to distinguish. As a result, our ability to taste food diminishes."
http://www.supermarketguru.com/page.cfm/299
Posted by: JohnDewey at Sep 13, 2006 2:57:14 PM
How can McD's coffee prevent accidents? and where is the food at the Ballpark getting better?
Posted by: sourcreamus at Sep 13, 2006 3:47:14 PM
Children loving unhealthy foods are nothing new. I remember as a child I would eat as much junk food as possible and was never overweight. What the problem now is that kids won’t get off their lazy butts and run their meals off. They had rather lie on the couch and play their XBOXES.
Posted by: wbg at Sep 13, 2006 8:52:20 PM
I believe that the reasons that children are wanting unhealthy food is because they are not trained to eat right. Parents need to start early in the childrens lives and show them the healthy things to eat. There shouldnt be a lot of junk food in the household because then the children are going to want to eat that and are going to be used to getting junk food. I believe if parents are stricked with the childrens diets and allow occasional splurges then the children will not want to eat unhealthy food all the time because they are not used to getting their way and eating that. I believe that sweets and junk food should be used occasionally as awards for the children. This way the children learn that they wont always get their way and that they have to be good and do chores or whatever is expected of them to be able to receive these awards. Kids these days are way too lazy and they dont respect their parents. Instead, they tell their parents what they want, and it is shocking how parents listen to them. Over the years the roles have seemed to change.
Posted by: Kendra at Sep 13, 2006 10:23:26 PM
Fast food and health. I agree with many of the points made here. I don't believe it is the food itself that is the problem. I believe that regular portions can be unhealthy for someone who is predisposed to gaining weight. I also agree that exercise and/or the lack of it is more a determinant in weight than most people want to admit. I know for myself even a moderate amount of exercise (20 minutes a day/5 days a week) makes a tremendous difference in my weight. I have also found that when I exercise, what I eat doesn't make as much difference.
Another factor on fast food is cost. With the cost of gas and the cost of upscale dining fast food can be cheaper in the long run. If I don't bring my lunch with me to work, it is much more expensive to make the 10 minute commute to my home than it is to go to the fast food joint.
I agree with the time factor as well. When we spend so much time at work, it is better health wise to grab something and eat earlier than to wait and fix something and then eat and then go straight to bed.
Ahhhh time and money, time and money.
Posted by: Evelyn at Sep 14, 2006 7:23:05 AM
I believe that the reasons that children are wanting unhealthy food is because they are not trained to eat right. Parents need to start early in the childrens lives and show them the healthy things to eat.
As someone who was raised in a "healthy" vegetarian environment, I can tell you that this is not about "training" or "education." If anything, the lack of appeal of healthy foods as a child made me enjoy junk food even more.
Posted by: Jonas Cord at Sep 14, 2006 11:59:37 AM
Also I blieve that the reason kids like the bland, plain food, and dont care about the complexity of foods like older people do is because of taste buds. As a person ages they lose there senses. They lose there taste buds. So while a young child thinks that a Plain Cheeseburger tastes better than the one with Rabit food on it, it might be because the child still has the taste buds telling him that the rabit food tastes bad as where the older person has lost those taste buds
Posted by: Daniel at Sep 14, 2006 12:16:49 PM
"kneejerk conservative defense of McDonald's"
Wow. You need to try some socialist cuisine, like maybe North Korea.
Posted by: Lee at Sep 14, 2006 8:34:56 PM
Don't kids like bland, repetitive everything? Shows, games, books, toys . . . I've seen a 3-year-old entertain herself for literally hours by spinning around and falling down repeatedly. Perhaps the adult taste for complexity is precisely that, and it manifests itself in every arena.
It's not like this doesn't make sense; a tolerance for tedium seems necessary for someone mastering a recalcitrant body who is physically and mentally unprepared to assess and handle risks.
Posted by: Kimmitt at Sep 17, 2006 6:57:42 PM
Children pefer these kinds of food because they have not learned the complexity of foods. They are given very simple foods and eat those because their tastebuds have not formed. Adults will eat different foods and try new things because they can get bored with simple foods.
Posted by: Jessica at Sep 26, 2006 4:04:24 PM
can i have any information about the Macdnalds franchise in russia
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