Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Michael Moss paints a grim portrait of our food industries in Salt, Sugar, Fat. Food scientists calculate a food’s “bliss point” so those who eat the product want to eat more. In fact, manipulating salt, sugar, and fat generates billions in profits (and a trillion dollars in sales) for General Mills, Kraft, Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Frito-Lay, Nestle, Cargil, and Pillsbury. The downside of all this food processing is that one in three U. S. adults are obese. Over 26 million Americans have diabetes (and that number is growing fast). What most impressed me about Moss’s book is the story of the research that goes into creating a new food product. Nutrition is an afterthought. The goal is for the consumer to EAT MORE. Salt, Sugar, Fat shows the nation’s health crisis will worsen. This is an important book! GRADE: A
This has been apparent since the Wonder Bread days of our youth. They take all the good, natural stuff out of the processed foods and then supposedly add in “healthy” additives to “help build strong bodies twelve ways.”
And America gets fatter and fatter…
And sicker and sicker, Jeff. Excess salt in food causes plenty of heart problems.
Sounds like the techniques used with cigarettes.
Exactly, Patti. The whole strategy is to get people to consume more.
And to think we’re aping the West! Indians love burgers and pizzas as much as they love their own junk food like vada pavs and bhel puris, the former a kind of spicy boiled and mashed potato patties (vada) stuffed inside round Indian bread (pav) sprinkled with a liberal dose of dry chutney made out of chilli powder, and the latter is a spicy (if you like) mixture of puffed rice, tomato, onion, coriander leaves, boiled and mashed potato, green chilli, ginger and spices, and fried sev (thin strips of all-purpose flour) sprinkled with an equally liberal dose of tamarind and mint chutney. Add an average six cups of tea or coffee a day, or coke, and you have a health crisis in the making. The Indian pharma and medical lobby is throwing scary figures at us, too, and I believe every one of them. India, we are told, is set to become the diabetes capital of the world.
Prashant, no pancreas–East or West–can process the amount of carbohydrates in processed food. Diabetes rates are exploding all over the world where this engineered food finds new markets. At the heart of the problem lurks the facts Michael Moss exposes in SALT, SUGAR, FAT: these new foods are addicting.
Just finished this book a couple of weeks ago–a real eye-opener. The most astonishing part was learning that as early as the 1990s the big food conglomerates were being informed of the burgeoning health crisis and decided en masse to take no action. I know on the one hand, each iof us is responsible for what goes in our mouths, but “Big Food” has to accept some culpability too. When I see kids who clearly weigh three bills by junior high, I know a massive (in more ways than one) crisis is looming.
Prashant–I’d take some of that delicious “real” Indian food over a Big Mac any day!
Deb, I’m with you: I’d rather eat “real” Indian food than a Big Mac, too! You’re right about the Big Food companies messing with our food since the Sixties. SALT, SUGAR, FAT shows why it’s almost impossible to loose weight if you eat processed food. I’m eating a lot of nuts: almonds, pecans, hazelnuts, and walnuts.