Take that soda and replace the fructose with sucrose. You still get people drinking a gallon of it.
> It's very difficult to consume even 1000 extra calories from proper food, like potatoes.
This is just not true. People find it easy to overeat. They add a little bit of butter here, some mayo there, have a drizzle of salad dressing, a nice snack. It all adds up.
Detrus is talking about proper food.
You're talking about butter and mayo.
A huge part of the problem is that people equate these things just as you have. Mayo in particular is an abomination. What we have come to accept as "food" is tragic[1].
Hey! There's only 57 calories in a tablespoon of mayo. If people are responsible and only use one or two tablespoons (to dip their fries, for example) then it is totally fine!
People need to learn to eat slower and really savour the food. Small portions of more intensely flavoured food is way better than huge, bulky meals of starch and meat and sugar. Whole grains too! I used to eat a half pound of regular pasta topped with several cups of cheap meat sauce. Now I eat 1/5 of a pound of whole grain multigrain pasta mixed with 3/4 cup of high quality marinara sauce (no meat) alongside a nice big salad (with minimal dressing). It tastes way better and is much healthier.
I think sugar based soda had less sugar per gallon. With HFCS they changed the recipe and added more, even though it's sweeter. Makes people buy more. Not sure what the case is now with back to sugar changes.
What I had in mind was intentionally consuming 1000 calories of proper food on top of a diet that covers physical activity. Often 3-5000 calories. You know you're stuffing yourself then.
And assuming the butter and mayo aren't packed with extra sweetener or leptin suppressors, they're not a big deal. They won't cause insulin spikes. A drizzle of typical salad dressing is full of HFCS though. Gotta eat your vegetables!
But note that soda doses and recipes changed around 1990. That's also when the word fat didn't quite describe the state of a growing number of people. You can get fat on greasier food. Fatter on sugary sweets. But nothing digests faster and makes your body react like liquid packed with HFCS and salt. Salt makes you thirst for more and more HFCS blocks out its taste. That's how those bucket sized cups get consumed.
> It's very difficult to consume even 1000 extra calories from proper food, like potatoes.
This is just not true. People find it easy to overeat. They add a little bit of butter here, some mayo there, have a drizzle of salad dressing, a nice snack. It all adds up.