ALTAVOZ » Legalizar no es estar de acuerdo

 La próxima vez que hablemos de la condición legal de las drogas, el aborto o cualquier otra cosa, por favor léanse primero este editorial (yo lo firmaría)

ALTAVOZ » Legalizar no es estar de acuerdo 

"Cuando alguien se pronuncia en favor o en contra de la legalización de algún bien o conducta considerada polémica, es fácil confundir esa manifestación con una en favor o en contra del consumo de aquel bien o de la realización de aquella conducta.

(...)
Tomemos el ejemplo de la legalización del consumo de un bien X. Imagine usted que una persona A es una activista en pro de la legalización de X, mientras que su amigo B es más bien un partidario de que X se mantenga como un bien ilegal. Basándonos únicamente en esta información, aventurarnos a decir que A es un consumidor de X -o, en todo caso, que está a favor del consumo de X- sería una conclusión bastante apresurada. Bien puede ser que A en realidad condene esa conducta tanto o más que B, pero que a la vez esté a favor de que la decisión sobre si consumir X o no sea estrictamente personal.

Por otro lado, debe tomarse en cuenta que decir que X debe ser prohibido pues su consumo "es malo o dañino” es caer en un grave error de concepto. Que una ley prohiba el consumo de un bien o la realización de alguna práctica no necesariamente soluciona los problemas que genera su consumo, pues esa ley no elimina la necesidad o voluntad de las personas de seguir consumiendo de ese bien o realizando esa práctica. No hay, entonces, una relación directa entre el efecto negativo de X y la necesidad de prohibirla. Otras veces, incluso, la experiencia empírica podría demostrar que el mantener algo como ilegal en realidad incentiva a que su consumo aumente en lugar de disminuir. Por lo demás, pretender contradecir el argumento pro legalización de X con uno que demuestra lo dañino que resulta X no es más que un error lógico. Lo correcto, para quien no esté de acuerdo con personas como A, sería argumentar por qué la legalización de X resultaría perjudicial desde su perspectiva.(...)

La postura que defiende quien defiende la legalización de una conducta no es que esa conducta deba realizarse porque está bien que se realice. Lo que ocurre es que la legalización permite que la decisión sobre si realizar o no aquello recaiga únicamente en la persona que se vería directamente afectada, y eso, cuando no se afecta a terceros, no es otra cosa que saber respetar el derecho fundamental a la libertad individual."

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food - NYTimes.com

The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food - NYTimes.com

"One thing Gladwell didn’t mention is that the food industry already knew some things about making people happy — and it started with sugar. Many of the Prego sauces — whether cheesy, chunky or light — have one feature in common: The largest ingredient, after tomatoes, is sugar. A mere half-cup of Prego Traditional, for instance, has the equivalent of more than two teaspoons of sugar, as much as two-plus Oreo cookies. (...) “More is not necessarily better,” Moskowitz wrote in his own account of the Prego project. “As the sensory intensity (say, of sweetness) increases, consumers first say that they like the product more, but eventually, with a middle level of sweetness, consumers like the product the most (this is their optimum, or ‘bliss,’ point).” "

"“They liked flavorful foods like turkey tetrazzini, but only at first; they quickly grew tired of them. On the other hand, mundane foods like white bread would never get them too excited, but they could eat lots and lots of it without feeling they’d had enough.”
This contradiction is known as “sensory-specific satiety.” In lay terms, it is the tendency for big, distinct flavors to overwhelm the brain, which responds by depressing your desire to have more. Sensory-specific satiety also became a guiding principle for the processed-food industry. The biggest hits — be they Coca-Cola or Doritos — owe their success to complex formulas that pique the taste buds enough to be alluring but don’t have a distinct, overriding single flavor that tells the brain to stop eating. "

"“mouth feel.” This is the way a product interacts with the mouth, as defined more specifically by a host of related sensations, from dryness to gumminess to moisture release. These are terms more familiar to sommeliers, but the mouth feel of soda and many other food items, especially those high in fat, is second only to the bliss point in its ability to predict how much craving a product will induce. "

"“Lunchables aren’t about lunch. It’s about kids being able to put together what they want to eat, anytime, anywhere.”

Kraft’s early Lunchables campaign targeted mothers. They might be too distracted by work to make a lunch, but they loved their kids enough to offer them this prepackaged gift. But as the focus swung toward kids, Saturday-morning cartoons started carrying an ad that offered a different message: “All day, you gotta do what they say,” the ads said. “But lunchtime is all yours.” "

"Around that time, the marketing team was joined by Dwight Riskey, an expert on cravings who had been a fellow at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, where he was part of a team of scientists that found that people could beat their salt habits simply by refraining from salty foods long enough for their taste buds to return to a normal level of sensitivity. He had also done work on the bliss point, showing how a product’s allure is contextual, shaped partly by the other foods a person is eating, and that it changes as people age."

"To get a better feel for their work, I called on Steven Witherly, a food scientist who wrote a fascinating guide for industry insiders titled, “Why Humans Like Junk Food.” I brought him two shopping bags filled with a variety of chips to taste. He zeroed right in on the Cheetos. “This,” Witherly said, “is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet, in terms of pure pleasure.” He ticked off a dozen attributes of the Cheetos that make the brain say more. But the one he focused on most was the puff’s uncanny ability to melt in the mouth. “It’s called vanishing caloric density,” Witherly said. “If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks that there’s no calories in it . . . you can just keep eating it forever.” "

" Coca-Cola strove to outsell every other thing people drank, including milk and water. The marketing division’s efforts boiled down to one question, Putman said: “How can we drive more ounces into more bodies more often?”"