Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us - Softcover

Moss, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0753541467 ISBN 13: 9780753541463

Publisher: W H Allen, 2013

Synopsis

This is the story of how the food industry have used three essential ingredients to control much of the world's diet. In Salt, Sugar, Fat Michael Moss uncovers the truth about the food giants that dominate our supermarket shelves and reveals how the makers of processed foods have chosen, time and again, to increase consumption and profits, gambling that consumers and regulators wouldn't figure them out. With access to confidential files and memos, relentless and original reporting, and numerous sources from deep inside the industry, Michael Moss shows how some of the worlds biggeset food companies have pushed ahead, despite their own misgivings (never aired publicly) and in spite of the meteoric rise of obesity in the western world. The truth about what's in your shopping basket: - A hunk of cheddar cheese is one-third fat, along with protein, salt and a little sugar - The human brain lights up for sugar the same way it does for cocaine - In nutrition circles, there is no single product - among the 50,000 items sold in the grocery store - that is considered more evil, or more directly responsible for the obesity crisis than soda - In the world of processed foods, salt is the great fixer. It corrects a myriad of problems that arise as a matter of course in the factory. Cornflakes, for example, taste metallic without it and crackers become bitter and soggy and stick to the roof of your mouth

About this title

Review:

Q&A with Michael Moss

Q. How did you land on salt, sugar, and fat as your way to write about the industry? Why these three ingredients?

A. I’d been investigating a surge in deadly outbreaks of E. coli in meat when an industry source, a microbiologist, suggested that if I wanted to see an even bigger public health hazard, I should look at what food companies were intentionally adding to their products, starting with salt. And sure enough, when I looked at this--by gaining access to high level industry officials and a trove of sensitive, internal records--a window opened on how aggressive the industry was wielding not only salt, but sugar and fat, too. These are the pillars of processed foods, the three ingredients without which there would be no processed foods. Salt, sugar and fat drive consumption by adding flavor and allure. But surprisingly, they also mask bitter flavors that develop in the manufacturing process. They enable these foods to sit in warehouses or on the grocery shelf for months. And, most critically to the industry's financial success, they are very inexpensive.

Q. So, how big is the processed food industry, exactly? What kind of scale are we talking about here?

A. Huge. Grocery sales now top $1 trillion a year in the U.S., with more than 300 manufacturers employing 1.4 million workers, or 12 percent of all American manufacturing jobs. Global sales exceed $3 trillion. But the figure I find most revealing is 60,000: That’s the number of different products found on the shelves of our largest supermarkets.

Q. How did this get so big?

A. The food processing industry is more than a century old--if you count the invention of breakfast cereals--so it’s been steady growth. But things really took off in the 1950s with the promotion of convenience foods whose design and marketing was aimed at the increasing numbers of families with both parents working outside the home. The industry's expansion, since then, has been entirely unrestrained. While food safety is heavily regulated, the government has been industry's best friend and partner in encouraging Americans to become more dependent on processed foods.

Q. What three things should a health-conscious supermarket shopper keep in mind?

A. The most alluring products--those with the highest amounts of salt, sugar and fat--are strategically placed at eye-level on the grocery shelf. You typically have to stoop down to find, say, plain oatmeal. (Healthier products are generally up high or down low.) Companies also play the better-nutrition card by plastering their packaging with terms like "all natural," "contains whole grains," “contains real fruit juice,” and "lean," which belie the true contents of the products. Reading labels is not easy. Only since the 1990s have the manufacturers even been required to reveal the true salt, sugar, fat and caloric loads of their products, which are itemized in a box called the "nutrient facts." But one game that many companies still play is to divide these numbers in half, or even thirds, by reporting this critical information per serving--which are typically tiny portions. In particular, they do this for cookies and chips, knowing that most people can't resist eating the entire three-serving bag. Check it out sometime. See how many “servings” that little bag of chips contains.

About the Author:

Michael Moss is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter with the investigations group of The New York Times.

About this edition

• Publisher: W H Allen
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0753541467
• ISBN 13: 9780753541463
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480