Summary Of The Extraordinary Science Of Addictive Junk Food

A human’s ability to adjust to environmental stimuli is the important biological process that is necessary to live. These adjustments are based entirely on one’s surroundings and how he or she has previously dealt with adjustments. Surroundings are not only environmental, such as the air, water, or a natural disaster, but can also be advertisements or stores. Humans are able to take in their surroundings and make a logical decision that will allow them to act in the proper way to their specific environment. However, if a person’s surroundings are posed, he or she will respond in a way that is logical for that environment. In Michael Moss’ “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”, the food consumers’ surroundings are altered in order

If a person were to see a car coming towards them or were to hear its horn blaring, he or she would know to move out of the way. However, if a person is blind, they would not be able to see and would therefore have to rely on other senses. When a person is blind, their “visual cortex becomes hypersensitive to internal stimuli of all sorts: its own autonomous activity; signals from other brain areas—auditory, tactile, and verbal areas” (Sacks 337). This simple action that the brain puts out as a response to visual stimuli is one of the basis for life of any kind. However, once those senses begin to diminish, a person loses their ability to make this response. Fortunately, the brain is exceptional at picking up the slack from a lost sense and is able to find new ways to deal with such stimuli. When a person is blind, the brain rewires itself to create surroundings in a different way. In some cases, people consider thinking to be an imageless process; one that is controlled entirely by descriptive propositions (Sacks340). Unfortunately, these descriptive propositions can become altered by other people. If a blind person was lied to about his or her surroundings, they would have no choice but to believe the lie because the person who told them that can see what is going on around them. This creates a shift the blind people’s surroundings and therefore, a shift in the way they live their lives. This shift is not only seen due to the loss of a sense, but also as a result of pleasuring the senses. The junk food industry is making a “conscious effort to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive” (Moss 262). This is done by generating food that is pleasurable to all of the senses, enabling the food to become more appealing to the consumer and therefore sells more. The maximum pleasure that is possible to be brought forth by food