When Doritos first hit store shelves in 1964, they weren’t Cool Ranch Doritos or Jumpin’ Jack Monterey Cheese Doritos or Jacked Ranch Dipped Hot Wings Doritos. (That last one — believe it or not — is for real.) In the beginning, they were just triangular corn chips with a little salt. What turned Doritos into a $5 billion global brand wasn’t variety or clever marketing. It was desire — the kind of laboratory-developed, biological desire that makes you want to eat another and another and another. “Without that synthetic flavoring, I don’t think people would eat much junk food at all,” says Toronto food writer Mark Shatzker.

Salon talks to author Mark Schatzker about why the worse our food tastes, the more we eat