People do buy these things, so clearly there must be reasons for doing so. Point is, are they good reasons? And are they real reasons, or have they been put there by some big (and yes, evil) corporation?

The BBC did a wonderfully subversive 3-part documentary a few years ago called "The foods that make billions", which investigates in some depth the way people's tastes have been shaped to accept anything the food industry comes up with (no matter how disgusting in concept). Well worth tracking down on YouTube or whatever (particularly the episode about yoghurt, which I found grimly hilarious).