The snack bar company Kind began airing a national TV commercial in June that seemed, well, not very kind at all. It pitted its product against a competitor’s—and became the latest salvo in the billion-dollar fight to reshape what Americans consider a healthful bite to eat.

Turns out the secret ingredient in the $8 billion snack-bar market is actually consumer ignorance, or at least confusion. About one-third of Americans’ total daily calorie intake now reportedly comes from snacking. Many of these snacks are ultraprocessed, making them both energy-dense and easy to consume.

(A recent study shows that people actually wolf down highly processed foods faster than unprocessed items like fruits and vegetables.) More than 40% of the U.S. population can’t recognize which ingredients on a label are sweeteners.

Not surprisingly, most Americans are overweight and trending toward obese. But Lubetzky is on a mission of what he calls “enlightened self-interest” to change that. The plan includes behind-the-scenes work to shift label laws and food policies at the FDA, along with an increasingly public effort to correct how food shoppers see the world.

“We’ve invested heavily in what’s right for society, and we’ve always thought that that’s ultimately going to be the right answer for us too,” he says.

Read the full article about comprehensive food labeling by Ben Paynter at Fast Company.