If a planet is an enclosed system then what strategies could others employ to control it without outright destruction and genocide? There are subtle ways for mind control. Hopefully, it can be universally agreed upon that our reward system can be simplified to something like energy investment / effort. For example, our consciousness may have evolved to please us more if we waste very little of our own fuels to obtain some more from a source. In simple terms, this could be illustrated as such:
You wake up 6 o'clock in the morning, walk to the kitchen cupboard and start munching on chocolate bars or sugary cereals. This behavior will almost always feel satisfying because what you consumed immediately turns into the glucose that you run on.

Fruits are slightly different, when you feed on them it takes more time for it to be processed. Supposedly, fructose is turned into glucose by metabolic processes in the liver while sugar straight up ends up in your bloodstream with little to no intermediate barriers. If we think in terms of medications, this would mean that sugar can be compared to consuming powdered painkiller or intravenously injecting it and eating a banana is like harvesting the oozing opium latex from the pods of opium poppies.

There are likely many fundamental vulnerabilities in our consciousness but it's easy to notice that our entire market has developed around these insights. Another great example I can think of is our land use and production of wheat. The seeds are sown by machinery, then the wheat grows and a combine harvester just reaps the entire thing in a pattern of parallel rows. There's nothing stopping us from using the same land for high quality fruits or vegetables. The difference lies in the cost of labor and harvest. Why would we feed the world with high quality agricultural produce when we can just sow wheat seeds, row over them, mill them, chuck dough into ovens and then sprinkle some sugar on top? It's a deceitful fulfillment of our physiological needs.

The farmer is happy because they really don't have to do as much labor as laboring other forms of produce would. The manufacturer is happy because it's a simple process and the ingredients are easy to source. The consumer is happy because the product exploits the consumer's vulnerability to be rewarded by a pleasant buzz while eliminating the uncomfortable feeling of hunger in his stomach.

Eventually, some problems will start to emerge and they're called health or dental issues. Pastries glazed with sugar will leave some weird growth on the tongue and change the PH values in the mouth to accomodate bacteria that develop cavities. It becomes diabetes, fuel for cancer, obesity and so on.

Consumers of slops may realise that these will cause problems but they don't have much of a choice to select things to consume that won't accumulate into future issues. We will also always have the brain rotten in the crowd who will flaunt their tooth and say we'll I've had candies every once in a while and I have none of these problems. They're probably the same people who are shopping in Waitrose or one of those restricted places because they've had the family background and an upbringing that prevented them from being too exposed.

That will not really explain away why, if we took every single slop off the shelves from every single store, almost nothing would remain. It explains why having an upbringing that allows them to make better choices is decent but it abandons a wider public that is composed of people who don't necessarily have the time, patience, guidance, financial or emotional circumstances to follow or build some trendy mediterranean diet that will preserve them for the next 100 years.

Either way, it's unfortunate but some may end up in the healthcare system constantly tring to be fixed for issues that ultimately everyone participated to create and sustain. This will cost more tax to maintain which will require either more consumers or taxpayers to fund. Food quality will need to be further reduced and so on and so forth. Jobs will be created and many of them will revolve around either repairing or perpetuating these things. Many jobs that are about the creation of more slops that the workers who work them will have to consume and it can be as sad as some individuals not having time to consume anything better anyway because those slopjobs are consuming their time. The loop continues.

Another example I can think of is truckdrivers. Drivers who work in long distance logistics have to transport certain goods - including produce that will land on the shelves of something like Waitrose. They may not have the comfort, clarity or calm to stop by mediterranean restaurants to maintain a diet that allows them to flaunt their tooths. They may even be more suspectible to certain damage such as something like the effects of sitting 18 hours a day and then sleeping in a cabin. How would people who eat candies and can flaunt their tooths because they've had a nice upbringing will tell them that they could have became actors or supermodels if they only just purchased from Waitrose? It's one of those fantasy confrontations that I'm yet to see in public. Can policy makers, producers and businesses face the people who they may be parastic against and explain them how come in 2024 we can't go to space and why people are still driving massive micro-pollution and worn tire-rubber dispensers to transport tons of slops that created a seemingly inescapable loop of the vast majority of our daily struggles.

I live in the UK and I noticed a disproportionate amount of increase in slops after taking a break. I thought of the UK as more like a hub of international ingredients that give labor to world class chefs and home cooks that's part of the world heritage. Can the uptick of mass-produced slops indicate that there is foreign influence over the domestic markets? I also noticed way much more jarred and bakery products that very much resemble things that were produced in workshops or guilds and in general just look like artisinial goods that display and meet higher standards for human consumption and environmental preservation.