"What Americans eat and drink has become such an emotional roller coaster for so many of us that it's utterly changing the way the nation's biggest restaurant chains, foodmakers and grocery chains do business," USA Today writes this morning. "Food used to feed our bodies. Now it also needs to feed our brains. Our egos. Our nostalgic memories. And maybe even our social-media appetites."

Food manufacturers, the story suggests, "know that one of the strongest emotions that many American consumers feel toward the food they eat is fear. One week the fear is over pink slime. Then, it's about chemicals in milk. Or mad cow disease. Or too many calories stuffed into a large, sugary drink. Or even some worker's fingertip getting chopped into an Arby's roast beef sandwich."

And so, the story says, companies are making choices that have emotional appeal, whether it is using words like "honest" in the name, using packaging that resonates with people's memories, or making sure that products have the proper "mouth appeal" when they are eaten.

KC's View: You wouldn't think that this would be such a revolutionary concept. Food is among the most sensory of experiences - at least for people who are open to it - and therefore it has always been almost criminal that marketers (on both the retail and manufacturer sides) have ignored the potential for emotional resonance connected to great taste.