The shot that extinguished hunger – and is changing the food industry

I admit: I was addicted to sweets. I bought family packs and was excited by every new shiny chocolate or sugar in a different package on the shelf. But 13 kilos less and one injection a week made me look at the world of food with completely different eyes. Once a week I inject myself with the end of the food industry as we knew it.

Sounds dramatic? Look what happened to me in front of the supermarket shelf: After years in which my cart filled up as if by itself – the snack at the checkout, the dessert “because I deserve a treat” and the third package at 50% off – I walk past those shelves today and feel nothing. I don’t hold back, I don’t fight the urge, I don’t exert willpower. I just don’t want to. The constant noise in my head about food just turned off.

Injection | Photo: Ingaimage

I lost 13 kilos, and my health indicators are at their peak. But as a consumer behavior researcher, what really gave me chills was the realization: This silence in front of the shelf is happening to 250,000 to 300,000 Israelis right now, and no one in the food and restaurant industry is really prepared for it.

The Bliss Point That Went Bankrupt

Let’s say what no one in marketing departments will say out loud: The processed food industry doesn’t just sell food—it sells desire. For decades, food labs have calibrated the precise ratio of salty, sweet, and fat. In the industry, it’s called the Bliss Point—the precise touchpoint where the brain forgets to say “enough.”

The flashy snack, the crunchy texture, the rustling packaging. This was the “economy of excess”: a model built not on what we need to eat, but on the difference between what we need and what made us crave it.

But a regular diet is a battle of willpower against biology, and willpower almost always loses. The new injections, on the other hand, are biology against biology. They change the rules of the game on the plate, and even on the shelf.

In the US: A Cornell University study found that a household with one patient on injections cuts food spending by about 5.3% in six months. The salty snack sector has already seen a significant drop of more than 10%.

From “Make it bigger” to “Make it smaller, please. “I don’t feel like it”

For decades we have been taught that size matters: XL portion, family meal, large package. Now, for the first time in culinary and retail history, consumers are asking for the exact opposite – make it smaller.

New food consumers are looking for small packages, measured portions and quality bites that are precise to their new hunger level. The “I’m willing to pay more per gram, as long as it’s small and precise” approach was once considered a marketing failure. Today it is driving a completely new category of products.

This is even affecting the home kitchen: smart ovens with steam cooking and hot air frying without oil have become a hit. People prefer refrigerators with preservation technologies, give up the huge freezer in the warehouse and stop making huge purchases to stock up on food. When the basket shrinks, storage loses its meaning, and with it the need for it.

Not just for those who inject

If you think this is a passing trend of a group In short, look at what food giant Nestle has done. In 2024, it launched Vital Pursuit, its first major food brand in three decades, designed specifically for users of weight-loss injections—small, protein- and fiber-rich portions.

The surprise? 77% of the brand’s buyers are households where no one takes the drug. The market has adapted: the entire public is looking for more nutritious, more concentrated, and smaller meals.

The thought that bothers me in front of my plate

The food industry loved to market its food to us with the slogan: “You deserve to enjoy.”

But after the noise in my head stopped and the weight came off, I discovered something disturbing: All the cravings and quantities I thought were “mine” were never mine. They were engineered for me in a lab, and I paid for it for years—in money, waistline, and health.

The real question that remains open, for all of us and for those who cook, produce, or sell For us, food is simple: what remains of our food culture on the day we learn to enjoy without wanting more?