by flagamuffin

b_b and maybe kleinbl00

There’s a "key fact" you need to know to understand the food industry, Pollan says: Wall Street wants these companies to grow by at least 5 percent each year. But America’s population only grows by about 1 percent each year. That is  —  or at least was  —  a problem.

"For a long time people in the industry thought it was impossible to get people to eat more," Pollan says. "They called it ‘the fixed stomach’ and they lamented that, unlike in the shoe business where you could get people to keep buying more kinds of shoes, you couldn’t get people to eat more. Well, they’re to be congratulated. They solved that problem. Capitalism is very powerful. It solves problems. But it solves its own problems, not always our problems."