Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

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.

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.

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.

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