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A review by cdlindwall
Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
3.0
Long story short: a well-researched book about an important topic, although overall a bit dull.
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Salt, Sugar, Fat goes behind-the-scenes to confirm what many of us probably already knew: the giants of our processed food industry are into some dark, shady shit. It also confirms something else most of us already knew: virtually everything we buy in the middle aisles of our grocery store is terrible for you.
This book delves into the history, marketing techniques, and scientific breakthroughs behind processed food, which is increasingly chock-full of our three favorite ingredients — salt, sugar, and fat. It also correlates these food industry shifts with the meteoric rise in preventable, obesity-related disease.
The vast majority of modern processed foods have been stripped of nutrients and re-engineered in a high-tech laboratory to be as delicious and low-cost as possible. And, because of the obscene quantities of salt, sugar, and fat that have been added, they're almost all contributing to bad health. Food scientists have also added back in chemicals, compounds, and break-through versions of the foods we know best (ex: high-fructose corn syrup as a sugar alternative made from cheap, subsidized corn). The biggest food producers (Kraft, General Foods, Nestlé) have entirely re-structured the way our country eats, and not for the better. Most prized? Convenience, taste, and low-cost. Tossed aside? Nutrition and the delayed costs of health care.
Perhaps most infuriating, Moss describes the way the federal government has not only been complicit in creating our backwards food system, but has taken an active role in creating it. Legislators will continue to be in the pockets of billion-dollar industries, and that's something everyone should get fired up about.
Moss' interviews with top food execs are rare in their candor. The food industry, ranging from dairy producers to the innovators behind Lunchables, are often incredibly tight-lipped and secretive. These are billion-dollar PR machines, where every statement to the public is calibrated and in-line with a larger branding goal. To have a former top executive at Coke sit down and say he feels bad about marketing his product to poor areas of South America is a big, big deal.
In fact, I think one of the biggest, implicit questions Moss is really asking is: Are there moral implications to creating an incredibly unhealthy product that is nearly impossible to avoid for vulnerable demographics and then making an obscene amount of money by marketing the shit out of it?
Of course, I'm not vilifying the people who work as cogs in the food industry's machine, who need well-paying jobs like the rest of us, but rather the CEOs who have explicitly decided to choose this route instead of a brighter one. Why would that be your choice? (Some would say it was never really their "choice," because it's what sells.) Why not innovate to create something that both succeeds in the marketplace and is a force for good? Do you want the premature deaths of millions of Americans to be your legacy?
I am fired up about this issue, but this book gets just 3 stars for a few reasons. Most importantly, I thought it was dull. Although it was well-researched, thorough, and about an important problem, I found it more difficult to engage with than other books about similar topics.
But secondarily, I think Moss took too long (i.e. - the epilogue) to remind readers that we choose to participate in this system. Of course, I am excluding people who are in vulnerable situations (poor, uneducated about nutrition, etc.), but many who routinely consume processed foods have an option not to do so. It's not the easier option, obviously, but it's always there. At the end of the day, you can only point your finger at the big-bad food companies for so long before you take responsibility for the things you put in your mouth. And what's great is that once you decide to make smarter, healthier decisions about food, there are plenty of options there waiting for you. The market will make way for our preferences — it wants to provide what you want to buy. As I believe Michael Pollan says, we vote for the food system we want three times a day, with our forks. I'm not here to police food choices of those who have no interest to change, but for those asking for change, you can't also participate in the problem. And I'm not talking about Oreos every once in a while or even Lean Cuisines every night for dinner. The habits that have created billionaire, worldwide food Goliaths are chronic, ubiquitous, and extraordinarily indulgent. So if this book ignites a fire in you, feel empowered that this is one of the few systematic problems you are very much still in control over personally. And even if it took Moss until the epilogue to make this point, I think it's what he ultimately wanted this book to be — a tool to make us more aware and empowered consumers.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Salt, Sugar, Fat goes behind-the-scenes to confirm what many of us probably already knew: the giants of our processed food industry are into some dark, shady shit. It also confirms something else most of us already knew: virtually everything we buy in the middle aisles of our grocery store is terrible for you.
This book delves into the history, marketing techniques, and scientific breakthroughs behind processed food, which is increasingly chock-full of our three favorite ingredients — salt, sugar, and fat. It also correlates these food industry shifts with the meteoric rise in preventable, obesity-related disease.
The vast majority of modern processed foods have been stripped of nutrients and re-engineered in a high-tech laboratory to be as delicious and low-cost as possible. And, because of the obscene quantities of salt, sugar, and fat that have been added, they're almost all contributing to bad health. Food scientists have also added back in chemicals, compounds, and break-through versions of the foods we know best (ex: high-fructose corn syrup as a sugar alternative made from cheap, subsidized corn). The biggest food producers (Kraft, General Foods, Nestlé) have entirely re-structured the way our country eats, and not for the better. Most prized? Convenience, taste, and low-cost. Tossed aside? Nutrition and the delayed costs of health care.
Perhaps most infuriating, Moss describes the way the federal government has not only been complicit in creating our backwards food system, but has taken an active role in creating it. Legislators will continue to be in the pockets of billion-dollar industries, and that's something everyone should get fired up about.
Moss' interviews with top food execs are rare in their candor. The food industry, ranging from dairy producers to the innovators behind Lunchables, are often incredibly tight-lipped and secretive. These are billion-dollar PR machines, where every statement to the public is calibrated and in-line with a larger branding goal. To have a former top executive at Coke sit down and say he feels bad about marketing his product to poor areas of South America is a big, big deal.
In fact, I think one of the biggest, implicit questions Moss is really asking is: Are there moral implications to creating an incredibly unhealthy product that is nearly impossible to avoid for vulnerable demographics and then making an obscene amount of money by marketing the shit out of it?
Of course, I'm not vilifying the people who work as cogs in the food industry's machine, who need well-paying jobs like the rest of us, but rather the CEOs who have explicitly decided to choose this route instead of a brighter one. Why would that be your choice? (Some would say it was never really their "choice," because it's what sells.) Why not innovate to create something that both succeeds in the marketplace and is a force for good? Do you want the premature deaths of millions of Americans to be your legacy?
I am fired up about this issue, but this book gets just 3 stars for a few reasons. Most importantly, I thought it was dull. Although it was well-researched, thorough, and about an important problem, I found it more difficult to engage with than other books about similar topics.
But secondarily, I think Moss took too long (i.e. - the epilogue) to remind readers that we choose to participate in this system. Of course, I am excluding people who are in vulnerable situations (poor, uneducated about nutrition, etc.), but many who routinely consume processed foods have an option not to do so. It's not the easier option, obviously, but it's always there. At the end of the day, you can only point your finger at the big-bad food companies for so long before you take responsibility for the things you put in your mouth. And what's great is that once you decide to make smarter, healthier decisions about food, there are plenty of options there waiting for you. The market will make way for our preferences — it wants to provide what you want to buy. As I believe Michael Pollan says, we vote for the food system we want three times a day, with our forks. I'm not here to police food choices of those who have no interest to change, but for those asking for change, you can't also participate in the problem. And I'm not talking about Oreos every once in a while or even Lean Cuisines every night for dinner. The habits that have created billionaire, worldwide food Goliaths are chronic, ubiquitous, and extraordinarily indulgent. So if this book ignites a fire in you, feel empowered that this is one of the few systematic problems you are very much still in control over personally. And even if it took Moss until the epilogue to make this point, I think it's what he ultimately wanted this book to be — a tool to make us more aware and empowered consumers.