Ascetic hedonism

I agree with many of the parts of this post. I think xkcd was largely right, our brains have one scale and resize our experiences to fit. I think for a lot of people the hardest step is to just notice what things they actually like, and how much, and in what quantities before they habituate. 

However, the specific substitutions, ascetic choices, etc. are very much going to vary between people, because we have different preferences. You can often get a lot of economic-efficiency-of-pleasure benefit by embracing the places where you prefer things society doesn't, and vice versa. When I look at the places where I have expended time/effort/money on things that provided me little happiness/pleasure/etc., it's usually because they're in some sense status goods, or because I didn't realize I could treat them as optional, or I just hadn't taken the time to actually ask myself what I want.

And I know this isn't the main point, but I would say that while candies and unhealthy snacks are engineered to be as addictive as law and buyers will allow, they're not actually engineered to be maximally tasty. They have intensity of flavor, but generally lack the depth of "real food." It's unfortunate that many of the "healthier" foods that are easily available are less good than this, because it's very feasible to make that baked potato taste better than most store-bought snacks, while still being much healthier. I would estimate that for many of the people don't believe this, it is due to a skill issue - cooking. Sure, sometimes I really want potato chips or french fries. But most of the time, I'd prefer a potato, microwaved, cut in half, and topped with some high-quality butter and a sprinkle of the same seasonings you'd use for the chips and fries.

Yeah, I stumbled on this idea a long time ago as well. I never drink sugary drinks, my laptop is permanently in grayscale mode and so on. And it doesn't feel like missing out on fun; on the contrary, it allows me to not miss out. When I "mute" some big, addictive, one-dimensional thing, I start noticing all the smaller things that were being drowned out by it. Like, as you say, noticing the deliciousness of baked potatoes when you're not eating sugar every day, or noticing all the colors in my home and neighborhood when my screen is on grayscale.

I strongly agree with this post, and feel like most people would benefit from directionally applying its advice. Additional examples from my own life:

• One time, a close friend complained about the expense and effort required to acquire and prepare good coffee, and about the suffering incurred whenever he drank bad coffee. I have since purposefully avoided developing a taste in coffee. I conceive of it as a social facilitator, or as a medium to simultaneously ingest caffeine, water and heat.
• Back during my teenage years, one day I decided I would drink just water from then on. I have since dropped the fanaticism, and occasionally partake in other beverages. Soda now tastes obscenely strong, if not outright gross. I am healthier and wealthier than the counterfactual, since water is healthier and cheaper than all alternatives.

Candy, cookies, and their high-sugar ilk taste delightful, if eaten without guilt. Adults tend to replace them with processed, professionally-designed “snacks”, which taste about as good and harm the body about as much. I tend to replace them with, say, a mere baked potato. It tastes less good, but the difference is small. From there to lettuce is a change about as large, i.e. about as small.

Are you claiming that there’s not much difference, in experiential terms, between a cookie and lettuce? If so, then (a) you’re very obviously wrong, and (b) given that you claim this, I don’t believe anything you say about food.

If this is not what you’re claiming, then please clarify.

(Cookies and baked potatoes are, of course, both great; but it is foolishness to try to rank them, on some sort of unidimensional scale. That’s not how enjoyment of food works! For one thing, there are multiple dimensions of experiential variation; for another thing, the experienced “deliciousness”, and enjoyment along various dimensions, of any given food item, is not fixed, but varies dynamically, in response to a number of factors—including what other foods you’ve been eating.)

P.S.: The “radical cure for sugar enjoyment” described in your linked post (taking emetic drugs when you consume sugar) is a really bad idea.