FoodBozo.com

Many soda fans think Coca-Cola tastes better when it has real sugar instead of corn syrup.

If there’s one thing this country is really great at, it’s coming up with clever new ways to take what is a completely normal product, apply a bit of subtle psychological manipulation, convince people that it’s something special, and sell it at a jacked up price.

I’m talking here about Mexican Coke, and I do so not without a hint of irony, because I myself am a firm believer in its superiority over regular old American Coke. I mean, how could it not be better? Real sugar instead of corn syrup. Glass bottle instead of aluminum or plastic. The cachet of seeing the words refresco and no retornableprinted instead of plain old pedestrian “refreshing.”

Read more: Taste Test: Is Mexican Coke Better?

Testers evaluated a week’s worth of packaged food from the rival weight-loss plans.

As diet gurus never stop advising (and our own reader surveys confirm), portion control is the magic bullet that successful losers use to slough off the pounds and keep them off. So much so, in fact, that it’s part of the basic business plan of Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem (results available to subscribers), two of the top U.S. commercial diet plans.

Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem sell plan members branded, packaged entrées, snacks, and desserts, which members then supplement with store-bought fresh fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. We’ve often wondered how those companies’ meals-in-a-box compare with each other in terms of taste.

Read more: Diet taste-off: Jenny Craig edges out rival Nutrisystem

I’ve never met a chip I didn’t like. Some people have a sweet tooth, I have a salty tooth and chips are my #1 weakness. My chip addiction is not helped by the fact that kettle chips are everywhere, popping up in an assortment of mouth-watering flavours. Hmmmm, sweet chili & cream cheese chips, anyone? Yum. (In case you were wondering, kettle chips are cooked individually in batches, rather than in a continuous flow machine, which is supposed to make them crunchier and of a higher quality.)

Read more: Tasting Lab: Four Kettle Chips

Call them healthy, call them grown-up; whatever you want to call them, this group of cereals doesn’t include Fruit Loops and Cap’n Crunch. We wanted to find out which were the best-tasting out of the so-called “healthy” cereals sold in national supermarkets. So we compiled a list of thirteen boxes, picked them up along with some milk, and settled in our conference room early on a Monday morning to crunch, much, and scribble on score sheets. Flakes, squares, clusters–all shapes and sizes were included. We also got nutritionist Sandra Frank to weigh in, breaking down which three cereals are the best for you out of the already good-for-you pack.

Read more here: Supermarket Standoff: Healthy Cereals

The buttery taste found in packaged foods isn’t just butter flavor anymore. Increasingly, it is browned-butter flavor, formulated to taste deeper and more savory than plain butter, says International Flavors and Fragrances, one of the leading laboratories for developing flavors used by food companies.

Snack chips are spicier. Chewing gum is mintier. Energy drinks are fruitier. In short, American cuisine is adrenaline cuisine.

Read more here: A Taste for Hotter, Mintier, Fruitier

By Mark R. Vogel

In the James Bond movie “Octopussy”, Roger Moore, a.k.a., 007, is captured by the villain, an Afghan prince named Kamal Kahn. Seated at the dinner table with his evil host, James Bond is revolted by the stuffed sheep’s head glaring at him from his plate. In gastronomic horror he watches Kahn twist out one of the creature’s eyeballs and gloriously pop it into his eager mouth. Bond refuses to partake claiming he “loses his appetite when he’s stared at.”

The foods that people choose to eat or not to eat is an interesting subject of study. If humans developed in a vacuum, free of all external influences, we would probably consume what naturally appealed to us. There are underlying biological reasons, (biochemistry, genetics, taste bud anatomy, etc.), that create individual differences in taste preferences. If we were without our feelings we might choose our victuals much like Spock, the emotionless Vulcan of Star Trek: based purely on nutritive value. But we have not grown up in a vacuum nor are we passionless automatons.

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