Salt Sugar Fat How the Food Giants Hooked Us...by Micheal Moss ..review in the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/feb/24/salt-sugar-fat-moss-reviewFrom the Guardian..Feb 24, 2013
Joanna Blythman
The Observer, Saturday 23 February 2013
A damning investigation into the junk food industry is both chilling and contentious
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New York Times journalist Michael Moss spent three-and-a-half years working out how big food companies get away with churning out products that undermine the health of those who eat them. He interviewed hundreds of current and former food industry insiders chemists, nutrition scientists, behavioural biologists, food technologists, marketing executives, package designers, chief executives and lobbyists. What he uncovered is chilling: a hard-working industry composed of well-paid, smart, personable professionals, all keenly focused on keeping us hooked on ever more ingenious junk foods; an industry that thinks of us not as customers, or even consumers, but as potential "heavy users".
How do the food giants do it? Moss's central thesis is that junk food is a legalised type of narcotic. By deliberately manipulating three key ingredients salt, sugar and fat that act much like drugs, racing along the same pathways and neural circuitry to reach the brain's pleasure zones, the food and drink industry has created an elastic formula for a never-ending procession of lucrative products.
As Moss explains, the exact formulations of addictive junk foods (and drinks) are not accidental but calculated and perfected by scientists "who know very well what they are doing". Their job is to establish the necessary "bliss point", the precise amount of sugar, fat or salt guaranteed to "send consumers over the moon".
Sugar, with its "high-speed, blunt assault on our brains", is the "methamphetamine of processed food ingredients", he believes, while fat is the opiate, "a smooth operator whose effects are less obvious, but no less powerful". Without salt, he observes, "processed food companies cease to exist".
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this book was published Febuary 26, 2013...now 5th on NYT best sellers: non fiction
http://www.nytimes.com/best-sellers-books/hardcover-nonfiction/list.html
I got the idea to post this here, from a post in GD by redfairen:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022564508
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)I have been working to make my diet healthier for a couple of years (almost a decade)now. And I am fine with greatly reduced levels of sugar (I still love pasta though), I am very ok with lower levels of fat (I can almost always fall within a health range in my diet), but salt not so much. My salt intake is off the charts. Even with great reductions I am still nearly double the amount I am supposed to be eating. And this is with making most my meals from scratch. But, I have cut my intake by about half. And my salt intake is very high even without junk food. I really don't want to think what it would be if I was still eating a lot of chips n stuff like that.
Stuart G
(38,436 posts)Yes, I am addicted to it. But...if I don't get it..I still want some.
And it is in everything....so why do I care.???
Two not one...heart surgeries..and 12 pounds overweight..(although.. I was once 60 pounds overweight)..Waking up in intensive care..really sucks..avoid it if you can..please..............Stuart G.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)I have cut my intake in half with no pain. My theory is the more fresh and less processed foods I eat the less salt I will eat. So far so good. But, I don't know how much of this will be self correcting and how much I will actually have to contentiously do to avoid high levels of sodium. I already rinse any canned food I use in cooking.
Yeah and I really want to avoid heart problems. No doubt that sucks. Hope you are feeling better now.
I already have diabetes. Hopefully that will self correct to a degree as well since I am making a huge effort to eat more vegetables, fiber, and less processed foods.
Stuart G
(38,436 posts)blood sugar went from 290 in earlier test..to 90...off sugar for 3 months..I have known him for 7 years..never looked better..or younger...especially in his face..
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)despite not eating much refined sugar. I am not positive, but I think that it's because I don't eat much protein or at least I didn't for the last couple of months. I have corrected that problem so hopefully it will let my blood glucose level stabilize. Well I gotta go see my doc and figure out what's the problem. I will know a lot more after this visit.
Lysistrada
(20 posts)I hope to buy it soon.
Stuart G
(38,436 posts)What Coca Cola execs thought of their consumers....
"Within Coke they referred to their best customers not as you might think 'consumers' or 'loyal fans' or something like that. They became known as 'heavy users.' And Coke had a formula ... that basically said, '20 percent of the people will use 80 percent of the product.' And, as Coke saw it, it was worth their while more to focus on those 20 percent using 80 percent of the product than to try to generate more consumption by the other 80 percent. So the heavy users of soda became those people who were drinking as many as 1,000 cans of soda a year, sometimes more."
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Reminds me of how I read about drug dealers and their relationship with their users...Coke. one of the most well know brands in the world.
Neoma
(10,039 posts)Limiting my sugar to fruit, trying to only drink water, tea and milk. But mostly water that I also drink a lot of in the mornings to wake me up instead of drinking coffee. Vegetables and bulk items are a majority of what I buy now. Especially anything green, rice, beans and nuts. Avoiding bread, and making salty things a light dessert. If I must do pasta, have it whole wheat... And every time I go to the store, I'm going to buy a vegetable that I have no idea what to do with, and look up how to prepare it...
It's one thing to say, "well he had a heart attack since he ate so many hamburgers." But another thing to realize you're doing the same exact thing...
Stuart G
(38,436 posts)I wonder how many of those have an addiction to sugar salt and or fat?? 2/3 of the country. (including me.) I hope this book gets wide publicity and thought. Perhaps some changes can be made due to increased understanding of this problem. And food addiction, sugar, salt and fat...is a problem..
ginnyinWI
(17,276 posts)His funeral was last Sunday, and he was 56.
After he got married in his twenties, he began putting on weight. Having a lifelong aversion to vegetables, he ate the standard American diet with all of its built-in sugar, fat and salt. Lots of starch and bowls of ice cream with the kids in the evenings. By his 30s he had diabetes but ignored it. He would not change his lifestyle--or couldn't. They gave him pills to take and he kept on eating and steadily gaining weight.
Then at about age 50 he had to go on insulin injections. And still he'd keep on eating the same stuff. By this time he was divorced and alone. He didn't smoke, and didn't drink. Didn't even drink coffee. Food was his comfort, his love and his drug. He worked a high stress job, came home at night with a bag of fast food and ate it in front of the tv. If he wanted to eat extra things, he'd just shoot up some more insulin. He never exercised. He had a health scare about a year ago where he almost went into a diabetic coma, calling the parametics just in time as he lay on his living room floor, alone. The doctors gave him stern warnings at that time. But nothing changed.
He must have been over 300 lbs when he landed in the hospital recently with pneumonia. He had many health problems by this time, including bad kidneys, bad eyes, high blood pressure and sleep apnea. They put him on oxygen and antibiotics plus painkillers because the pain from his lungs radiated into his back. On the third day his heart failed and he died, leaving three young-adult children and two young granddaughters.
This was, to me, absolutely a case of food addiction. He ate and loved all the wrong foods and didn't know how to stop. Just like the guy in "Super Size Me", he was like a drug addict for fast food. It was the way he comforted and soothed himself--the way he knew he could feel better. But it shortened his life by at least 20 years. He was an intelligent man with a warm heart and enthusiasm for life, but this thing beat him.
R.I. P. Dan. We will miss you.
Stuart G
(38,436 posts)Food addiction is awful..you got to eat. I am recovering but it is hard, very hard to deal with on a day to day level..more later..
.. sorry again...Stuart