It isn't officially out until Sunday, but already, 5 people have sent me pointers to The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food, which leads the New York Times Magazine this Sunday. I'll have comments about the story in a day or two, but I had just enough time today to share this reader comment from Expat in Germany:

Yawn. I'm a mother without any ties whatsoever to the food industry, and even I acknowledge that the top priority of a business is to earn money. Why should the food companies be in charge of public health? [Italics mine.] Sugar is not a food, but we crave it for the same reason our primate ancestors craved ripe fruit. Give it a rest already.

That's exactly the point, Expat! They shouldn't! But someone should, or we'll end up with a globesity pandemic. That'd sure be bad news, if anything like that happened.

Protecting public health is not a function for industry. It is a function of government to reel in the excesses of profit-driven lust, which is precisely what Big Food has. The story quotes a participant in Coke's marketing who said efforts boiled down to one question: “How can we drive more ounces into more bodies more often?” Change one word and the quote would fit a runaway rapist's goal in life.

That's what they're going to do. The question has long been, what are we going to do?