Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

This book is jam packed with real life conspiracies and facts about the biggest market manipulators in history. I have really enjoyed reading this book as the author is eloquent and keeps heaps of information light and quick to read. It doesn't bog you down while reading and it was a real page turner for me. I have become concerned with my health over the past 5 years, since I got married, and my overall diet went from lentils and brown rice day in, day out, to cardboard boxes, plastic packaging, fast food, restaurants, take out, microwaves, lunch meats, cheese galore, cookies, candy bars, etc. etc. After being in and out of over 7 different specialists' offices and surgical suites in the years since this S.A.D. under-haul with various severe ailments from gastrointestinal to gynecological, I have began taking back control of my health. This book has been somewhat of a nail in the coffin in those regards. Basically, I learned to stop feeding myself lies. After reading this book, I can see blatant lies and misleading claims all throughout the grocery store. Meaning advertising on signs and boxes - all bright and colorful to lure you and your children with willynilly health claims based on a minute shred of evidence from a biased Nabisco or General Mills 'investigation.' etc. "Contains real fruit juice" means nothing. "100% natural" is meaningless and any person can put that on ANY product whether it's true or not. Stop giving your kids Capri Sun and sweetened 'fruit juices.' You owe it to them to educate yourself so they have a shot at a long and healthy life without being shot in the foot by their parents during their formative years. Really. Take some responsibility. Don't even get me started on Lunchables! One of the downfalls of our modern day society. "It's like I'm sending my kid to school with a present so he knows I love him! Tee Hee!" Yeah, well enjoy your child having plaque in his arteries by age ten. I digress. Keep this in mind the next time you go shopping: Lead paint tastes sweet, but that doesn't mean you should eat it!! I bet a lot of people would be surprised to know that Betty Crocker is a figment of an ad execs imagination. Not real, not in the least. Don't fall for her lies about Crisco and making life easier by NOT cooking dinner and having more TV time in the evenings. This is how we went off the rails, and the U.S. government was a huge promoter of that. Nearly everyone knows the U.S. is in cahoots with the sugar industry, the beef industry, the dairy industry, and so on and so forth. Essentially, anything that is bad or unnecessary for us is shoved in our faces by the DOA (Eat more beef and cheese!), by the huge conglomerates themselves, and, as another surprising example, by Philip Morris; a tobacco company who actually owns several of the biggest "food" production companies around. Quick - what's the overall biggest contributor of saturated fat in the American diet? Cheese! And then Beef! Whoo hoo! Oh, er...wait....heart disease is our nation's #1 killer.... and the government wants us to eat more.. cheese? Oy. Anyway - Great book. I highly recommend to anyone without a clue. It might clear some things up. I apologize for being snarky. It's just that.. you know. Insurance rates. Crowded hospitals. Less room in your airplane seat when sitting next to someone due to size. Others' actions impact everyone else and no one considers their fellow-person anymore. Sigh.

I am the type of person who hates highlighting in books. Even in college, it pained me to take a highlighter and mark up a page, no matter how brilliant the passage. It was a sort of sacrilege, a desecration of the book. So for me to mark up passage after passage of this book (albeit the Kindle version, but still), that has to say something about how shocking I found much of what this book has to say. It always strikes me as sort of pretentious and presumptuous to call a book "important", but this is an important book. It's a stellar example of the true power of excellent investigative journalism, and is great evidence for the argument that we need to be willing to pay for journalism if we want quality and depth. I think it is fair to criticize this book a bit by saying there are some sections that feel a little hasty. There's a bit of sloppiness here and there, and the book is repetitive at times. Still, this didn't detract from the importance of its message. Divided into three sections: salt, sugar, and fat, Moss goes into great detail in analyzing why the processed food industry is so reliant on these three ingredients, even when it knows that these ingredients aren't good for us and may well be contributing to obesity and other diseases, such as diabetes. The bottom line is this book exposes the ugly side of capitalism: when you are so intent on selling a product and providing a high profit margin for the pleasure of Wall Street and your investors, you tend to lose sight of the fact that the product you're producing is meant to nourish people. I felt almost like I was looking at this book from opposite sides of the looking glass. On one hand, I could understand the industry drive to increase profits and lower costs, and to not only meet but beat the competition. From the other side, this is food we're talking about here, food that has become a huge part of the American diet and that may well be killing us. Are profits worth this? If ever there was a reason for government regulation, it is the food industry--this book proves exactly why that intervention is sometimes necessary. The market isn't self-regulating when all that matters is profit, not what the product is doing to the people who are using it. Parts of this book are downright revolting, such as when Moss has the opportunity to taste some products without the added salts, sugars, and fats on which they reply. He describes things like Cheez-Its and canned soup as tasting bitter and metallic, and this was enough to put me off those products for good. Moss argues that the food industry uses inferior ingredients not because those ingredients are acceptable, but because they generate more profit and cost the company less. The ingredients are the very definition of inferior precisely because they taste terrible. In order to mask the horrible taste, the industry, you guessed it, loads the products up with salt, sugar, and fat. Time after time, I couldn't help but wonder why we eat these things when they sound like the sort of nourishment we wouldn't give to our dogs. Ah, but there's an answer for that. It's not enough for food companies to sell us a product, they must hook us on it and instill a sense of brand loyalty. It should go without saying that we can only eat so much food, which means there are only so many food dollars to be won. In a perfect world, we'd eat just enough to sustain us and keep us healthy but, in that world, the food companies wouldn't make the obscene profits they make. So, what they do is scientifically formulate their foods to make them so addictive we eat more than we should--and they do this not only knowingly, but on purpose. Let that sink in for a while: food companies are actively trying to ensure that Americans overeat because the more we eat, the more money they make. They invest a lot of time, effort, and research into figuring out what makes us like the taste of something and using that information to create recipes that we literally find irresistible. It's mind boggling to imagine what we could create if that sort of devotion, time, and money was applied not to making us eat food that wrecks havoc on our health but, say, to something like figuring out a cheap way to provide clean water for all, or to find a cure for cancer. This is one of the most striking elements of the book, the way it exposes how science can be monstrously twisted into a discipline that's used not for good (developing medicines, explaining how the world works), but for bad (tricking us into eating unhealthy quantities of processed foods). It's important for savvy consumers to know that studies and experiments can be structured in such a way as to try to determine their outcome before they even begin, and food companies are notorious for doing just this--sometimes because they've taken a page from the tobacco industry, which has owned some of the largest food companies. Whenever there's an outcry over a particular public health concern, the food companies fund studies that either try to downplay the risks or that help them continue to pump us full of terrible food by swapping out one risk for another. One need look no further than the high sugar content of the foods that were churned out during the fat free craze. The food companies prayed on consumer fears by creating a product that helped us assuage our worries about fat by getting us hooked on sugar. Most pernicious of all, though, is how the food industry has turned to preying on the most vulnerable in our society--children, lower income families, and people in developing nations--in order to continue to pad their profits. Through clever marketing and a concerted effort to ensure that prime shelf space is given to nutrient-deficient, calorically dense foods, the food industry ensures that those most in need of good nutrition are the least likely to get it. What's perhaps even more disturbing is how they've convinced the public that any attempts to level the playing field and make healthier foods more readily available is a violation of our "choice"--as if any of us would choose to be slowly poisoned by what we eat. One need look no further than New York's attempts at banning supersize sugary beverages. Yes, perhaps people should have the choice to ingest as much sugary soda as they want, but at what cost? At what point do we understand that we're being deprived of our choice to live a health lifestyle and to protect our children from the predatory marketing in which companies engage to make sure they make our children customers for life? And what about the costs to public health, don't they count for something? This book was such a wake up call. I'd already begun to look at processed foods with a dubious eye and have worked hard to eliminate them from my home and to prepare fresh meals from scratch using more fruits and vegetables, but this book finally helped tip the scale--pun intended--and made me determined to avoid added sugars wherever possible. I was so disgusting and upset by what I read that I found myself frantically cleaning out both my fridge and my pantry, throwing away things like salad dressing and mayonnaise because they both had added sugars. Why do we need sugar in mayonnaise anyway? That, I think, is the sort of question all Americans need to ask themselves. Maybe then we can end up with some semblance of sanity in our food policies.

Salt Sugar Fat is a commendably captivating and detailed book that is a testament to its author's journalistic brilliance, but there are some glaring omissions I will discuss below along with disagreements on some of his fundamental conclusions. Let me get this straight: we cannot afford healthy, tasty convenience foods, yet we CAN afford cardiac bypass surgery, gastric bypass surgery, endless doctor visits and pricey prescription drugs for diabetes, hypertension, cancer, arthritis, and the many other diseases and conditions that often result from crummy diets. DOES. NOT. COMPUTE. I can't help but wonder if the food giants didn't pull the wool over the eyes of Michael Moss when they fed him versions of their products with less sugar, salt, or fat to illustrate their supposed need. He found them noxiously unpalatable, calling them "metallic" and "bitter," not just bland, so repulsive it caused him to gag (page 350). That's difficult to swallow because I've made countless healthy-but-yummy treats that weren't the slightest bit metallic, bitter, or devoid of flavor. Thus I wonder: did those food companies trick him using the method nutritionist Adelle Davis used to convince her kids that soft drinks taste terrible? She surreptitiously dumped out the factory soda and filled bottles with nasty-tasting ingredients. Did the food giants give Moss special versions not just lacking their usual levels of sugar, salt, and fat, but also with something yucky, too? I'm tempted to say no, thinking they couldn't possibly be that unethical, but they want us to believe they must use high levels of sugar, salt, and fat to make products that can compete with other junky foods. They must have realized that Moss was targeting sugar, salt, and fat, so they had an obvious motive to persuade him they need toxic amounts of those things to stay in business and make a profit, which is their #1 goal. Hmm, if the food giants were so ethical, consider this: Their executives typically shun their products, but they're good enough for you and your family? This is more than a class issue, as Moss suggests in the book; it is unconscionable and premeditated. Moss seems to too readily accept the fact that our craving for such junk legitimizes its sale. I agree to some extend on grounds of freedom, but an essential element of fairness is lacking: informed consent. Most people don't realize how they are decimating their health, appearance, and mood by consuming such products filled with ingredients not fully disclosed and often deliberately camouflaged by giving them deceptively innocuous or even healthy-sounding names. I've called manufacturers to specifically inquire about ingredients and found that even they don't always know what is in their products, and even if they did, they wouldn't reveal it, citing paranoid fears that I might be a potential competitor. Ridiculous. Any company rich enough to internationally manufacture and distribute food can afford to reverse engineer competitive products to duplicate or even surpass them. Years ago in one of my books (it is no longer available so I posted the relevant excerpt online), I detailed my conversation with Quaker Oats when I called to inquire if one of their flavored oatmeal products contained a spice that caused a life-threatening reaction in a patient. Their rep and her supervisor said they wouldn't tell me and couldn't tell me because even they didn't know every ingredient in their products! Their taste came from a secret concoction purchased from a food flavoring company -- that's one of the dirty little secrets of the food industry that Moss omitted: secretive food flavoring companies fill our bodies with unknown chemicals that likely haven't been tested and approved as safe by the FDA (as if their blessing is sufficient reassurance). Those chemicals help send our appetites into overdrive. I can make goodies loaded with sugar, salt, and fat and stop eating them, but some commercial products are so addictive that resistance is futile. Don't you have a right to know what you're putting in your body? And your children's bodies? The happy packaging of those products doesn't accurately represent the reality of what's often inside: quasi-food that can prematurely age you inside and out, sully your mood, and put you in the grave years or even decades too soon. And, of course, make it almost impossible to stop eating. Hence the mushrooming prevalence of obesity. Moss did not adequately dispute the conclusions of supposed experts who opine that junk food isn't addictive. We routinely ingest junk we'd never give our pets. When intelligent, informed, and concerned people (such as Dr. David Kessler, former FDA Commissioner) cannot resist food that damages their health, lives, and even our national economy, I'd call that an addiction. Moss painted a damning picture of the processed food industry, for which he deserves another Pulitzer Prize, but his indictment of our food would have been more complete by also targeting restaurant food that is frequently so brimming with salt, sugar, fat (including dangerously reheated oils) and chemicals galore that it makes most processed food seem downright healthy. The modus operandi of the restaurant industry is similar to that of processed food manufacturers: combining cheap and unhealthy ingredients to make stuff you can't resist. Collectively, their Big Lie is that viable alternatives are not available. Utter hogwash. Without any dressing, I can make a salad bursting with flavor and nutrition, with no added sugar, salt, fat, or chemicals. I've never seen anything like it in any restaurant. Restaurants and processed food companies are tinkering with our food but evidently care more about their profits than their customers because their soup of chemicals, along with loads of sugar, salt, and fat, are adversely affecting our bodies and minds. They get away with this because most people haven't connected their diet to how they feel, sleep, perform, and appear. I'm more attuned to this than many others, but it took me years to make the connection. Why? I was eating processed food every day, so I didn't see enough day-to-day variation to quickly realize how that stuff (little of which was obvious junk) was seriously disrupting my sleep and hence mood. Contrast my writings from that period (still posted online) to what I write today, and there's a world of difference, as if they came from different people -- and they did, because going without restful sleep for years on end is bound to negatively affect behavior. I later serendipitously discovered some natural, healthy ways to boost mood and creativity into the stratosphere, along with empathy. That's quite a change from my Mr. Scrooge years. Many folks are too tolerant, thinking of things as toxic only if they result in immediate and obvious harm or death. Processed food companies and restaurants have exploited this leniency to feed us junk that undoubtedly is toxic and even deadly. For example, the Center for Science in the Public Interest published "Salt: The Forgotten Killer ... and FDA's Failure to Protect the Public's Health" which said that "reducing sodium consumption by half would save an estimated 150,000 lives per year [and ...] reduce medical care and other costs by roughly $1.5 trillion over 20 years." Think about it: sodium is killing as many people per week as terrorists did on 9-11. The United States spent more than it can afford fighting terrorism (see Time magazine's "The $5 Trillion War on Terror"), yet we look the other way when processed food companies and restaurants rack up a death toll that makes terrorists seem like amateurs? However, there is a glimmer of hope. As Moss repeatedly mentioned, some Big Food executives eventually realized that what they did was wrong and tried to make their products less harmful, but consumers voting with their taste buds and wallets generally vetoed those changes. So with folks virtually addicted to yummy food, the billion-dollar question is: Can it be tasty, healthy, and affordable? The answer is yes, but how to achieve that isn't immediately obvious to the processed food companies. They are obsessed with market share and profits but are overlooking the best way to achieve their objectives while doing the right thing for their customers.

This is a great read. If you've read any of Michael Pollan's books and thought "god, this guy can't write and apparently doesn't know how to do research either... I've never been so angry with an author whose premise I generally agree with," then this is the book for you! Moss can write! That should go without saying, but sadly does not. This is seriously interesting and also informative. Everything is well based in research and he lays out the possible conflicts of interest of the researchers, examines their past research and findings and says whether or not they happen to find in line with their funders or not, which is really important. He doesn't fall into vilifying people or companies where it's unlikely they had malicious intentions but he also does not pull punches. I had considered myself relatively well informed about food science, but I still learned a ton, and it was a fun read. It's exactly what I wanted when I read "In Defense of Food" and nearly pulled out all my hair in frustration since the whole book seemed to be hearsay; almot no supporting evidence! Salt Sugar Fat was really interesting, Moss clearly did a lot of research and it doesn't feel like he had a preconceived idea of what he wanted to say or find... but instead just did the research and laid out what it said. Yes, it has left me feeling like processed food sucks and I can't buy most of what's in the grocery store... but I know all the reasons and none of them are the general, fuzzy ideas like "well, it's not NATURAL," or "I can't pronounce half of what's in it," which aren't very compelling on their own... I mean, I can break fruits and vegetable down into components I can't pronounce either. Instead I can say, "well, the salt, sugar and fat in this product were engineered to induce cravings and reduce satisfaction so I am inclined to overeat the product. My brain rewards me for eating these things because it evolved in an environment that had very little of them. So I need to eat them in serious moderation and not trust my instincts." And of course that's only the most basic of the ideas encountered in the book. Anyway. AWESOME BOOK. READ IT.

"60% of supermarket purchases are unplanned. Anything that enables the shopper to make a faster, easier, better decision will help spur these unplanned purchases." "The new energy drinks have the best chance with the urban upscale shopper; while the rural ethic and urban shoppers remain slightly more loyal to soda. Depending on it's clientele, each store has a unique DNA." "But the real genius of their marketing plan was found in a contrivance that would appeal to both kids and moms. The drinks were made mostly with sugar, artificial flavours and preservatives. In each plastic bottle however, the company would add a splash of real fruit juice. It was barely half a tablespoon, a mere 5% of the total formula; but the Kool-Aid managers already new that even a hint of fruit was worth a zillion times its weight in marketing gold." "The government was buying more cheese than it could ever give away. It accumulated into a stack that weighed 1.9 billion pounds that cost taxpayers $4 billion a year. The mountain grew so large in fact, the government began secreting it away in caverns and a vast, abandoned limestone mine near Kansas City; deep beneath the ground in more bags, barrels and boxes than the mind can imagine." "Indeed, when it comes to the greatest source of fat - meat and cheese - the Department of Agriculture has joined industry as a full partner in the most urgent mission of all : cajoling the people to eat more." "Anyone who designs a product or an advertising appeal based on what people say they want, is an utter fool!" "Worried that they were losing their touch, they brought in a budding expert on the cravings that snacks like these were supposed to generate." "I could move that bliss point up or down depending on what other foods or beverages I put in the frame of reference." "Cheetos is one of the most marvelously constructed foods on the planet in terms of pure pleasure, ticking off a dozen attributes that make the brain say more. It's called vanishing caloric density. If something melts down quickly, your brain thinks there's no calories in it, and, like popcorn, you can just keep eating it forever." "Doritos 3D, a puffy spherical version of the flat chip whose added dimension increases the surprise factor when you take a bite. And surprise is a very good thing for increasing consumption." "Thus the strategy for strategy for millennials became snackable entertainment. The company's chips would be promoted through sporting events like the Super Bowl and games like XBox. Already these efforts had brought in double-digit gains in sales." "Many of the executives I spoke to go out of their way to avoid eating their own products." It just goes on and on and on .... A damning, name-and-shame, year-by-year account of how a few food giants have purposefully orchestrated the most broken food system we have ever had on this planet. One cannot help but say "you bastards" on just about every page of this book as it explains how sneaky food science and inescapable marketing funded by billions of Dollars makes for one hooked, obese, ill consumer base. You and me. And all for money. If you cannot lose weight, if you are plagued by allergies, digestive tract problems, cravings, headaches, cholesterol, depression, cannot stop eating, got kids that are out of control or sickly ... you need to look no further than this book to understand where it all came from and how completely innocent you are. Tests done with 6 year olds! Marketing plans targeted at kids that young! Get them early and you'll have them for life type of thing. So called healthy low fat, bran options all pure lies! There is nothing healthy about any of them. They bring down the salt, but then up the fat and sugar. Do you realise you are eating on average 22 spoons of sugar a day if you're eating processed foods? You need to research the term `bliss point`. The guilt you have been feeling every time you eat something, every time you feed your kids junk food because you're just too tired and it's all they will eat ... it's all been carefully orchestrated by an elite few food, beverage and tobacco companies. Then they've got the cheek to say that us as consumers need to eat less and more healthy when their products have been chemically engineered to make us completely addicted to them and completely incapable of stopping eating! Plus bringing out fake healthy alternatives for us that merely drive up their sales. And then topping it all off with misleading and confusing labeling to pull the wool over your eyes about what you're eating. It's nothing short of criminal. It makes me sick! No pun intended! And very very angry. And very very sad. There are about 60 000 products on our shelves designed like this and owned by 10 companies - you still think you have freedom of choice? What you may not realise from reading this book, is the double whammy its content exposes to those who do know this part - the genetically modified food industry that supplies all these companies with the base ingredients that go into their convenience foods, "convenience with a capital C!". Apart from the extremely high levels of salt, sugar and fat that are already killers, the base GM ingredients are affecting our DNA and causing every dreaded disease known to mankind, and then being passed on from mother to child whilst in the womb. Join the global March Against Monsanto on 25 May 2013! There is no escaping this perfect storm, apart from one : Go cold turkey and stop buying every single one of those products right now. It's how all addicts have to stop, and do not be under any illusions here, you are a food addict. They've turned us into them. Stopping is the only power we have. I know you're tired; I know you don't have the time. But staying in the middle of this perfect storm is nothing short of catastrophic for you and your family. The irony is, if you took the time to change to locally produced, organic, chemical free alternatives, you will have more energy you ever had before and thus more time on your hands. The government is not going to take care of you. These corporations do not care about you. You need to learn to take care of yourself! "Are health foods really expensive? It depends on how you measure the price". Please, read this book. It will change your life.

This book, Salt, Sugar, Fat, by Michael Moss is a great resource. Loads of information and a huge motivator to eat better and take charge of your own well being, mental, internal and overall health. What a wonderful, well researched, informative book, that's easy to understand. So worth reading and implementing into your life.

I feel distinctly conflicted about Michael Moss' Salt Sugar Fat (c2013). Firstly and foremost a well-crafted and fun read, eye opening beyond education, flatly Awesome! At the same time it is spine tingly frightening, Stephen King quality horrifying in its description of the lengths the processed foods people will go to peddle us junk food. Ultimately fascinating to me is the craft, dare say sheer brilliance of these bastard's ploys. In terms of marketing these men must be admired and learned from. They looked at a challenge not in terms of specific solutions - It was about redefining the problem, making it simpler, reframing the most basic questions. Chief execs like Robert Woodruff at Coke who saw having a Coke as a part of every great moment in a person's life, and he should be there to sell them one. And Charles Mortimer at General Foods (who coined the term "convenience"), who in the late fifties told the food scientists from his struggling cereal division that they were thinking about the problem all wrong - You're in the "breakfast foods" business, not the cereal business, think outside the box (my choice of words) and forget about cereal for now. And the scientists did just that to great success, creating best sellers like Tang, instant breakfast drinks and Pop Tarts. The kid could now have cake and a sweet drink for breakfast, in addition to the usual selection of newer and even sweeter cereal brands. Cunningly smart scoundrels; they didn't sell product features, they bestowed lifestyle benefit. Yet all at once they must with equal vigor and vehemence be despised for their blatant disregard of public health, surely every bit a criminal as any drug dealer. To these execs no ethic was sacrosanct, even aggressively marketing directly to kids. No stone would be left unturned, and after they had us turned the right way inside the store they set loose the food scientists who leapt full reign into the brain science, tens of mil spent to find out what we could have guessed- What we each already knew deep in our bones - Sugar acted like a stimulant and Fat like an opiate exciting the very same pleasure centers in the brain as the drugs did, and salt smoothed out the in between, the up and down. Unilever's study said it, "Ice cream does make you happy." It's official. They had discovered with focus groups and brain scans the `bliss point', and were learning to maintain it without exceeding sensory specific satiety; understanding the why we like things, and manipulating the mechanism of how we know when to stop eating. Flavors, textures, aromas and mouth feel were engineered with designer food additives (their long term health effects unknown), targeted like a laser to defeat the signal in our head, the signal that says "Enough!" Instead we keep eating, becoming junkies for the stuff. All these disgraces are artfully wrapped by Moss in real stories of real events, and real people who were there, all humanized, or at least not demonized (Moss' narrative tone more amazed than outraged). Stories of dedicated corporate soldiers who cared about what they were doing and did the best job they could, most sounding unapologetic in the recap. To the contrary, they were proud of their contributions, although many ultimately soured with the sobering questions of morality. Like the story of a thoughtful and well-meaning VP from Kraft corporate named Michael Mudd, who got sat down at a meeting of industry leaders in 1999 for suggesting the large numbers of fat people who ate their salt sugar and fat laden stuff might present a public perception problem, and potential consumer backlash. He mentioned something about promoting exercise too. He was told, in a manner of speaking, to pipe down and not upset the apple cart. That consumer fads and preferences were current fancy, they would pass in time. There was no need to go crazy. "...Look, we're not going to screw around with the company jewels and change the formulations because a bunch of guys in white coats are concerned about obesity..." That was the gist of what Stephen Sanger, head of General Mills, had to say about it all. Astonishingly (or predictably not), the common industry view of what was needed had become and remains more and better sugars fats and salts. Ones more easily concealed with innocuous names like "Fruit Concentrate" - Which is still pure sugar, only then they could picture fruit on the wrapper, and feel better about it. The answer was to double down with more offerings, line extensions - Re-formulate retest re-launch, go go go. The new marketing paradigm wasn't as concerned with generating new users, it was modeled or more accurately formulated to promote existing customers to consume even more, and feel good about it as they did, or least not to feel bad - Brilliant! - Damn the torpedoes of public criticism, and the dangers of diets high in salt sugar and fat, and their calculable contribution to obesity. The answer was more, More MORE! Gun lobbies loved that one too. The processed food giants could have acted responsibly back then, at that 1999 meeting when Mudd gave them the hard facts. They could have come to an agreement to voluntarily lower the salt sugar fat content and address nutritional concerns. They could have avoided a foreseeable future of unnecessarily higher economic and social costs. It's easily imagined if they'd spent as much money on quality ingredients as they did on only a part of research and promotion, their stuff could be healthy and taste good, and we'd be farther along the road in dealing with the problem. Fourteen years later the arrogance stands magnified in skyrocketing obesity and diabetes numbers, and loudening demands for the industry to clean up its act. Sure too there'd be legal and legislative battles to be fought (ie NY Big gulp law), and the dreaded prospect of a sugar tax. Yet the players behave more irresponsibly than ever. The Philip Morris people could see a backlash coming. They'd been there before. It's why they sold off their food interests. The book could also be considered as precautionary tale, argued for the necessity of closer government oversight. That a private corporation left to its own device will act in its best interest, even if those interests are directly opposed to public wellbeing. The examples in the book support this proposition time and time again. They're not inherently evil entities; we just got to watch them. Certainly the book argues persuasively to the ineffectiveness and counter productiveness of the present legislative landscape and regulatory system. The form those regulations and enforcement should take involve thorny questions, both commercially and constitutionally sensitive, confused within the influence of big food's lobby. Maybe most poignant is the story of marketing guru and loyal Coke employee Jeff Dunn. He'd wanted to work at Coke since he was eight. His father Walter had worked at Coke, a legend there. Jeffrey only later became disgruntled. On a trip to Brazil in 2000, as he looked around a slum in Rio, the voice in his head said, "...`These people need a lot of things, but they don't need a Coke.' - I almost threw up. From that moment forward, the fun came out of it for me." Dunn's lately been trying to promote a new product using the same considerable marketing skills he'd employed on Coke and Dew. That new product - Bags of Carrots. Just carrots, nothing added, no sugar coating or dipping sauce included. It will likely take all his considerable skill to make it work...God Bless him! It takes quite a while to overcome generational eating habits. It takes generations. It starts slowly, a bag of carrots here and there. Kids will eat what you tell them to eat, after a couple of days of hunger.

I give kudos to this author. I just can't stop reading this book. Usually I'm reading fiction books on my Kindle and I have a non-fiction book or two that I look at every once in a while. Currently I am choosing this book every time I open my Kindle. It's so well written and easy to read. Mr. Moss is an amazing storyteller. I am learning so much and I am so greatful for his research - it's truly amazing how in depth it is. But that's not the best thing - it's how the author tells the tale. It's such an easy book to read - and you wouldn't think it would be. I think this book should be required reading for everyone today. It is infuriating to learn how the industry folks, including big tobacco, have duped all of us but at the same time, but at the same time we can learn from history to not let it continue. This book is a way to help everyone understand the issue and come to their own conclusion. I know the information in this book has helped me truly embrace a more healthy lifestyle. I used to struggle to not buy the potato chips and packaged cookies because I was on a "diet" - now it's easy to pass them over in the grocery store. I am choosing (most of the time) to not be manipulated by the people that created them. The cravings, the ridiculous amounts of additives and sugar, the misleading statements - just so the consumers would continue to buy these overpriced snacks and food items. Now the whole dirty secret has been exposed. I recommend this book to everyone.

The book is decided into 3 roughly equal sections dressing the salt, sugar, and fat in processed foods. It is very well researched and extensively documented (fully indexed with a bibliography for further reading, hundreds of notes on references, and extensive sources provided). This guy knows what he is talking about and he tells it straight and fair. It is cock full of gems like: Finland reduced it's salt intake by one third and reduced deaths from strokes and heart disease by 80% (p302). The USDA recomends that 7 % of calories come from FAT; the US ave is 12%. (p155) Manufactures of process foods have been creating a desire for salt where none existed before" (p279) But it is even more than just facts; it is interesting and at points fascinating enough to make it an enjoyable read. I read this book in the same time that I spend on a similar sized thriller. Finally: Did you know that: "Every 1.7 box of processed meats consumed per day increases the risk of colorectal cancer by 21% ? See page 230

La edición y el diseño de portada están bien.

Um livro revelador, chocante! Essencial para todos nós que lutamos dia-a-dia por hábitos de vida saudáveis. Fundamental para conscientização sobre alimentação saudável.

Reading "Salt Sugar, Fat" will make you rethink the meaning of food. Companies like Nestle, Kraft, Pepsi and Coke have dedicated their existence to hooking you on their product with as much salt, sugar and fat into their product as government regulations and the public will allow. The U.S. government has even helped the food industry in this pursuit when genetically altered dairy cattle began producing milk in quantities that the American public could not reasonably consume. Rather than allowing the price to drop precipitously and thus, force the farmers to slow production, government policy ensures the sale of all milk, if not by the consumer, then by the federal government. A use for the fat removed during the production of skim milk and its cousins 1% and 2% milk, had to be found. The answer was cheese filled and so, the very institution that was supposed to encourage healthy eating was promoting the consumption of this fat and salt filled food. The statistics are shocking. Americans, on average, exceed the daily recommended maximum of fat by more than 50%. Nearly one in four American adolescents may be on the verge of developing type 2 diabetes or already have it compared with one in ten in the 1990s. Fat has twice the number of calories as sugar. When Campbell soup attempted to reduce the sodium levels in their product from 700 to 800 milligrams per serving to 480, their stock dropped 5% on Wall Street. A 12 ounce can of Coke contains almost ten teaspoons of sugar. The job of these companies is to sell product at whatever the costs to the people's health. Hypertension caused by high salt content in foods has resulted in increased incidences of heart attacks and strokes. For anyone who eats, this book will fascinate and disturb.

Eines der besten Bücher über die Nahrungsmittelindustrie und die Auswirkungen von Salz, Zucker, Fat, die ich je gelesen habe. Man wills nicht weglegen, lernt unheimlich viel Neues. Sehr gut recherchiert. Es werden viele wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen, Experimente beschrieben, spannend und humorvoll, leicht zu lesen ich bin begeistert, absolute Empfehlung