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Comment by Dgetman | Hacker News Reader

You bring up a great point. I studied Neuroscience at Duke university. Your cells adapt to their context and so what you are describing is sensitization. The more sugar you eat, the more you need to "feel" it. The problem is 2/3 of Americans are overweight or obese. In order for them to completely drop sugar would be a struggle, but my product can help bridge that gap for them.

Now why not just use stevia or aspartame to get the sweetness without the calories? 1) They have an unpleasant afteraste whereas Wozi does not 2) Wozi does more than just sweeten, it enhances flavor. Not everyone likes the taste of Greek yogurt but this makes it more palatable. How many times have you had a strawberry that tasted like nothing? This makes it taste as if it was the perfect strawberry.

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I have to admit I find that quite sad. Rather than accept eating blant foods until your taste buds/brain adjust you should sprinkle powder onto your tongue before every meal to confuse your taste buds? What are the long term effects?

Nothing against the berry/your product (although I find adding $1.30 of powder to each meal crazy) but is that how weak-willed the average person has become?

More personally, why would you need this for Greek yoghurt? Are we talking about actual high-fat-high-protein Greek yoghurt made purely from milk, or is there some 'Greek(-style) yoghurt' that actually tastes horrible? Everyone I know seems to love pure Greek yoghurt, with at most some berries or granola on top.

Innovation is all about making life easier :) Once could say what is the point of protein powder or soylent - can't you just eat food?

No long term side effects. I'm happy to share a few studies done (1 by Coca-Cola a year ago) if you'd like.

Price is highish, but I hope to get it down with scale. When you compare it to other products though it isn't that bad. A starbucks coffee is $4 and an RXbar is $2? I'd say you get a lot more utility out of this.

I personally don't like the tart taste of Greek yogurt. Regardless, Greek yogurt as it stands won't solve my sweet tooth.

> is that how weak-willed the average person has become?

Anecdotally, yes. I am regularly surprised to learn that people I know are aware they are (a) wildly out of shape or (b) obviously overweight and know what they need to do and the consequences of not doing so, and still do not take the steps to avoid. I used to think maybe people just weren’t self aware, but the issue is more pernicious - they lack the willpower to change (or, alternatively perhaps they don’t care, but I have a hard time accepting that educated people that I know do not care about their health). Let them off the hook for $1.30/meal and I suspect there will be demand from a large portion of the population that can afford it.

Side example: I have a family member currently contemplating buying a sauna for the cardiovascular benefits rather than simply going for daily walks for the same benefit. SMH.

To add some light on this, obesity can be perceived a lot like mental illness - it actually changes your brain chemistry and how you react to your environment. The pattern of brain activity and the excitability of critical brain areas are completely different from normal.

I'd definitely try the Greek yogurt effect with wozi.

But I can't help but think that with fruits and vegetables this is an odd solution to a problem we brought on ourselves. One of the issues with mass-production of plants is that the taste has a pretty low priority when compared to more pressing issues like pest-resistance and yield. If you go to some country where people are cultivating older strains of some fruits and vegetables, you'll see that those don't need any sort of enhancement.

So it's a bit like that "chipotlaway" joke from South Park... but there's not much we can do.

When I pitch my product I like to remind everyone that junk food has been engineered by scientists to be addictive. This is returning the balance back in the favor of healthy food. Fight fire with fire.

> why not just use stevia or aspartame to get the sweetness without the calories?

I find the aftertaste of stevia disgusting, and really long-lasting, but when I need to sweeten something I’ve had much better luck with erythritol. It’s cheap, widely available, and seems to be safe. That said, I generally avoid sweet foods anyway, so my use of either sugar or artificial sweeteners is relatively low.

But if you’re doing keto and you hate stevia, as I did, try erythritol.

I do quite like erythritol. I've hear allulose is good too. You need to be careful though because sugar alcohols like erythritol can cause GI (stomach) issues.

The second point still stands, erythritol doesn't enhance flavor and won't make Greek yogurt taste like cheesecake.

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