Ozempic, Ozempic, Ozempic

BY Leo thee Lemon

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Ozempic, Ozempic, Ozempic
BY Leo thee Lemon

Big food.
Is losing money.
Quietly, like a leak no one can find but everyone can smell.

Ozempic, Ozempic, Ozempic.

Say it enough times and it starts to sound like a warning siren dressed up as a wellness trend.

Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.

The tone doesn’t just sound the same, it flattens everything into the same obedient note, like a jingle you didn’t consent to memorize.

I’m glad I got that pop culture reference at the peak of existence.
Timed it perfectly.

How is the food industry dealing with its profit loss?
Not with panic, never that, but with controlled recalibration and a faint scent of desperation under the cologne.

Certain people are eating less.
Not by discipline, not by moral awakening, but because something in their body has been chemically told to stop.

Appetites are being kept under control.
Muted. Sedated. Quieted like a room after security steps in.

Thanks to revolutionary weight-loss drugs like Ozempic.
Revolutionary in the way all profitable revolutions are, precise, monetizable, endlessly repeatable.

Glucagon-like-peptide-1.

Semaglutide.

New words for expanding our cultural vocabulary.
Words that feel clinical on the tongue, sterile, like you should be wearing gloves just to say them.

Originally used in the treatment of diabetes.
A narrow doorway that somehow opened into a massive marketplace.
But has become approved for sale as a weight-loss medication.
Approved, packaged, priced, and placed exactly where the demand was already aching.

Which is good.

At least that’s the line we’re given, smooth and easy to swallow.
People who have been struggling with weight loss now have a solution.
Or something that performs like one, which is often enough.

This isn’t a fix.

It’s a loop with better branding.
It’s the same thing we do over and over again.
Dress the cycle up, call it progress, invoice accordingly.

We never look for a cure.

We look for a treatment.
Something that keeps the meter running.

Reduce symptoms.

Just enough relief to keep you functional and paying.

A cure doesn’t generate revenue.
It ends the relationship too cleanly.

A treatment is like a monthly subscription to live.
Auto-renew enabled. No cancel button in sight.
Recurring revenue.
The most comforting phrase in the room, warm and reassuring like a padded cell.

It honestly feels like they could have a cure for a lot of illnesses.
And if they did, you would never see it in its pure form.
This is one of the saddest things I’ve ever thought about.
Not dramatic, just quietly corrosive, like rust under paint.

The problem is in a capitalist driven society.
Not capitalism itself, but what we choose to reward inside it.

A treatment is better than a cure.
Because it stretches the transaction into a lifetime.

I’m not against capitalism.
I participate in it daily, willingly, repeatedly.
But we put up a lot of walls that prevent us from living in a society that could be ideal.
Walls made of incentives, reinforced with quarterly targets.

I love capitalism.

As I look at my outdated iPhone 12.
A small, glowing reminder that I am always many versions behind.

Capitalism isn’t the problem.
That would be too convenient.

The problem is simple.
Uncomfortable, obvious, easy to ignore.

Greed.

The quiet engine humming underneath everything.

The love of money.
Not money itself, but the way it eclipses everything else.

To put it more clearly.
When the love of money outweighs the care you put into your communities.
Your own people.
Your neighbours.
When the balance tips, you feel it in the air, thin, transactional.

Sure everyone is our friend when we can benefit.

A sale.

A customer.

A supplier.

Friendship with terms and conditions.

I do want to get back to talking about Ozempic.
I drifted, like attention tends to when the pattern becomes too obvious.
I kinda got off on a rant.
And I need to pull it back this way.

Back into the clean narrative.

The people who are losing money from Ozempic are snack-food, confectionery and soft drinks.
The usual suspects, brightly packaged and aggressively friendly.

Their sales are getting hit the hardest.
You can almost hear the spreadsheets tightening.

They depend on impulse.
On that split second where your hand moves before your brain objects.

This is treated by using a GLP-1 medication.

Impulse meets inhibition, chemistry versus conditioning.
They curb the cravings.
Dull them, file down the edge.

Less impulse.

Less frequency.

Fewer moments of surrender.

It’s almost like these foods were designed to be addictive in the first place.
Almost. Not quite. Just enough deniability to keep the meetings calm.

But don’t worry big food is working on solutions.
They always are, quietly, relentlessly.

Marketing smaller portions.

Selling you less for more, with a reassuring smile.

Using all the trendy words.

Protein.

Fiber.

Sugar-free.

Words that feel healthy when they hit your eyes, regardless of what follows.
You know you could avoid all these snack foods altogether.
A radical idea, almost impolite to suggest.

I haven’t drank a soft drink in I don’t know how long.
Long enough that the memory tastes artificial.

I find them gross.
Sticky, syrupy, clinging to your teeth.

Way too sweet.

The kind of sweetness that coats your tongue and doesn’t leave.
I’m making a face like “why would anyone drink that” while writing this part.
A slight curl of the lip, involuntary, honest.

Kinda like how I turn my nose up at fast-food.
Hard pass.
The smell alone feels heavy, like it sticks to your clothes.

I do like chocolate.
Did. Past tense feels cleaner.
But I recently gave that up as well.
Another small negotiation with myself.

I’m more of a savory person personally.
Salt, bitterness, things that don’t pretend to be kind.

I like bitter coffee.
Sharp, almost metallic on the tongue.
I could drink several cups a day but I limit myself to 3.
Control, or the illusion of it.

It’s a slippery slope.

You feel it the moment you stop paying attention.
I find this with most snack foods.
They don’t ask, they take.

Potato chips I have to finish the whole bag.

Every time.

No negotiation, just inevitability.

There is no using the clip.
The clip is decorative, symbolic at best.
It’s like it never fills me up.
Just keeps asking for more, louder each time.
And then after I feel like I have no energy.
Heavy, sluggish, a dull fog settling in.

I feel drained.

Like something was taken, not given.
And I feel like this for a couple days.
It lingers, sticky and slow.
I also want to eat more chips.

More everything.

The echo of the craving doesn’t shut off.

So those had to go.
Not a choice, a removal.
As happy as they made me while I was filling my mouth hole and chewing.
Salt crunching, oil coating, that immediate hit.

They made me very unhappy afterwards.
Quiet regret, stretched over hours.

Post-chip clarity.

A brief, useless enlightenment.
A vow to never do this again.

Repeated, broken, repeated.

I don’t need them anyways.

Need is a strong word. They just make it feel true.

Thomas Weber wrote in his New York Times Magazine piece “Ozempic could crush the junk food industry. But it is fighting back,” “There is little the industry hasn’t tried to keep health-conscious consumers eating. The food industry has always rebranded to keep pace with diet fads, introducing fat-free cookies, diet frozen entrees, and plant-based fast foods.” “For decades, big food has been marketing products to people who can’t stop eating,” he writes. “And now, suddenly they can.”

A problem, from their perspective, that needs immediate correction.

So will big food make food more addictive.
Not “if”. They already have, which is the uncomfortable part.

Are they working on something that is resistant to Ozempic?
Something that slips past the chemical gatekeeper.

Something that will make us crave food even more.
Louder signals, brighter lights, deeper hooks.

And what about people that don’t take weight-loss drugs?
The control group that never consented.

Will they be even more addicted?
Pulled further, because nothing is pushing back.

If they were able to make food more addictive I think they would’ve by now.
And then you remember, they already did.

But they probably didn’t have a need to do so.
Need arrives when profit dips.

Do you want to know something very dark about big food?
Not hidden, just rarely said out loud.

What if I told you that they were purposely making foods more addictive.
Carefully, deliberately, professionally.

What if I told you that they had experts working on it.
Teams, labs, budgets, timelines.

What if I told you they had “thee” experts working on it.

The best ones money can hold in place.

That these ultra-processed foods have a lot in common with addictive drugs.
More than we like to admit while eating them.

They are made hyper-palatable.
Engineered to dissolve resistance.

They are highly concentrated.

Dense, efficient, precise.

Natural.

Synthetic.

It doesn’t matter.

Your body doesn’t file a complaint.

They get absorbed the same way.

Fast, direct, effective.

In the bloodstream.

No ceremony, just entry.

They light up the reward centers in the brain.

A quick flare, bright and convincing.

The one that helped us eat more in our more primal part of our brain.
Ancient wiring, repurposed for modern margins.
We think this is a good food source.
We feel it before we question it.

It was designed to make us feel that way.

That’s the part that rarely makes the label.

Fighting against instinct.

A quiet, exhausting war.

The constant battle for weight-loss.
Framed as personal failure, priced as opportunity.

This is why losing weight is a mental battle.

Not just a physical one.

The battlefield is inside your head.
They were designed this way.
Not accidentally, not loosely.
To make more money.

Clean, simple, effective.
Trading your money and your health for a satisfying moment.
A brief transaction that feels like relief.

That mouth-feel.

The texture, the crunch, the soft collapse.

What if I told you these foods were designed after the model of getting people addicted to cigarettes.
A familiar blueprint, just repackaged.

Dr. Robert Love who is a neuroscientist specializing in Alzheimer’s said “big tobacco has been designing and engineering our snack food since the 1980s. Their tobacco scientists have been engineering the food to be more addictive, so they sell more, and potentially less healthy.”

A legacy system, still running.

A lot of the products are marketed to children.
Bright colors, cartoon smiles, early imprinting.

Tobacco companies have created the path to increasing the profits of their food companies.
A transfer of knowledge, quietly efficient.

If you have ever eaten ultra-processed foods this was in big tobacco’s playbook.
You’ve participated, whether you meant to or not.

Tobacco companies chemically alter nicotine with things like ammonia in their cigarettes.
Small adjustments, big effects.

This causes them to absorb faster in the brain.

Speed is everything.

Causing cigarettes to become more addictive.

Predictable, measurable.

They do the same with foods.
Different inputs, same objective.

The perfect ratio of sugar, salt and fat.

Dialed in like a formula.

A few chemicals.
Nothing too noticeable, just enough.

These become very hard to put down.

That’s the point.

I spent a good portion of my life as a smoker.
Habit, ritual, dependency.

I quit on average twice a week for a whole year.
A cycle of intention and failure.

That’s 104 times I tried to quit in a year.
Effort isn’t the issue.

Determination.
Not enough on its own.

I finally switched to vaping which is supposed to be even worse for you.
A lateral move dressed up as progress.

I made all my own vape juices because I was worried about what I was getting.
Control again, or something that looks like it.

I did this for about four years.
Long enough to normalize it.

And I just quit.

Abrupt, almost suspiciously simple.

It was simple.

Which makes you question everything before it.

Now these same vapes you can buy.
Convenient, polished, everywhere.
Some are owned by big tobacco.

Of course they are.

So it’s the exact same playbook.
Why change what works.

I am really glad I quit smoking when I did.

Timing matters, even here.

Cassidy Morrison- Senior Health Reporter. 2025, march 27. Alzheimer’s scientist reveals foods to avoid because they were quietly designed by Big Tobacco. Daily Mail.

https://www.dailymail.com/health/article-14536329/Alzheimers-scientist-reveals-foods-avoid-quietly-designed-Big-Tobacco.html

Caitlin Dunne, MD, FRCSC. (2026, January/February). Will Big Food outsmart GLP-1s. BCMJ, 5,7.

https://bcmj.org/editorials/will-big-food-outsmart-glp-1s

I appreciate you being here, reading this, and spending your time with my work. That alone already means something to me.

Growth takes resources—time, energy, care—and I’m trying to give this project as much of myself as I can.

(Every bit helps.)

With gratitude,

Leo

Have typewriter, will travel.