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Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us Audiobook
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Plot Summary
In Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, Michael Moss, writes a chilling account of how fast food giants put a great deal of thought into producing the exact product that will reach the maximum number of consumers, with no regard for their health. He interviews chemists, behavioral biologists, nutrition scientists, food technologists, package designers, marketing executives, and everyone else who is concerned with putting a certain product on the market. His information comes from insiders within the food industry who reveal that, to these conglomerates, human beings are just potential "heavy users." Salt, sugar and fat are the three ingredients used most by big companies to draw consumers in. These ingredients work like narcotics, dulling our senses and encouraging us to try just a little more. Sugar gives you a rush like methamphetamine while fat is like an opiate which makes you feel content. Salt is used instead of healthier herbs and spices to give some taste to food which would otherwise be completely bland.
Since the 70s, people have been trying to cut down on their consumption of milk, to reduce chances of weight gain. However, the industry has responded by producing more and more products full of cheese. There is pizza crust filled with cheese, cheesy chips and crackers, as well as frozen food with a lot of cheese. No matter how hard consumers try to stay away from dairy, the industry keeps producing more and more ways to bring you back to it.
Overall, this is a book that will make you rethink your food choices no matter how healthy you may think you are. Everyone eats some sugar, fat and salt in their diet and a healthy amount of each won't hurt you. However, it's important to stay aware of exactly how much you eat of each of these, something which many of us don't bother to do. We may not be able to change what the food giants throw our way but we can choose not to eat it if it's unhealthy for us.
Michael Moss was born in Eureka, CA and went to school at San Francisco State University. He worked as a journalist at The Wall Street Journal, New York Newsday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and other places before finally ending up at The New York Times. He won the Pulitzer Prize for a number of articles on the topic of the food industry in 2010. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Eve Heyn, also a writer, and their two children.
"This book put a lot of new thoughts in my head when I went grocery shopping. You look at labels a whole different way. Am I deciding this or is some big company just making more money from my ignorance. I did not buy my usual processed, boxed meals. It is a real eye-opener that anyone that eats shouldread"
— Sue (5 out of 5 stars)
Publisher Summary
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Atlantic • The Huffington Post • Men’s Journal • MSN (U.K.) • Kirkus Reviews • Publishers Weekly #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE JAMES BEARD FOUNDATION AWARD FOR WRITING AND LITERATURE From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic. Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back. In the spring of 1999 the heads of the world’s largest processed food companies—from Coca-Cola to Nabisco—gathered at Pillsbury headquarters in Minneapolis for a secret meeting. On the agenda: the emerging epidemic of obesity, and what to do about it. Increasingly, the salt-, sugar-, and fat-laden foods these companies produced were being linked to obesity, and a concerned Kraft executive took the stage to issue a warning: There would be a day of reckoning unless changes were made. This executive then launched into a damning PowerPoint presentation, making the case that processed food companies could not afford to sit by, idle, as children grew sick and class-action lawyers lurked. To deny the problem, he said, is to court disaster. When he was done, the most powerful person in the room—the CEO of General Mills—stood up to speak, clearly annoyed. And by the time he sat down, the meeting was over. Since that day, the situation has only grown more dire. Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese (triple what we ate in 1970) and seventy pounds of sugar (about twenty-two teaspoons a day). We ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food. It’s no wonder, then, that one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese. It’s no wonder that twenty-six million Americans have diabetes, the processed food industry in the U.S. accounts for $1 trillion a year in sales, and the total economic cost of this health crisis is approaching $300 billion a year. In Salt Sugar Fat, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how we got here. Featuring examples from some of the most recognizable (and profitable) companies and brands of the last half century—including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Kellogg, Nestlé, Oreos, Cargill, Capri Sun, and many more—Moss’s explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, often eye-opening research. Moss takes us inside the labs where food scientists use cutting-edge technology to calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages or enhance the “mouthfeel” of fat by manipulating its chemical structure. He unearths marketing campaigns designed—in a technique adapted from tobacco companies—to redirect concerns about the health risks of their products: Dial back on one ingredient, pump up the other two, and tout the new line as “fat-free” or “low-salt.” He talks to concerned executives who confess that they could never produce truly healthy alternatives to their products even if serious regulation became a reality. Simply put: The industry itself would cease to exist without salt, sugar, and fat. Just as millions of “heavy users”—as the companies refer to their most ardent customers—are addicted to this seductive trio, so too are the companies that peddle them. You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again. Includes a bonus PDF with endnotes from the book
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Quotes
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“This book should be read by anyone who tears a shiny wrapper and opens wide. That’s all of us.”
— Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize–winning author -
“Vital reading for the discerning food consumer.”
— Wall Street Journal -
“Deftly lays out the complicated marriage of science and marketing that got us where we are…Moss reports deeply from inside the food companies: researchers, marketers, strategists, CEOs, and many who have left their work, some with regrets about how good they were at leveraging the bliss point…This is inside stuff, and the book is all the stronger for it.”
— New York Times -
“If you had any doubt as to the food industry’s complicity in our obesity epidemic, it will evaporate when you read this book.”
— Washington Post -
“As a feat of reporting and public service, Salt Sugar Fat is a remarkable accomplishment.”
— New York Times Book Review -
“Propulsively written [and] persuasively argued…an exactingly researched, deeply reported work of advocacy journalism.”
— Boston Globe -
“A shocking, galvanizing manifesto against the corporations manipulating nutrition to fatten their bottom line—one of the most important books of the year.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) -
“American cuisine is just a delivery system for an addictive trinity of unhealthy ingredients, according to this eye-popping exposé of the processed food industry…[that] explains the two-faced science of salt, sugar, and fat..[A] gut-wrenching look at the food we hate to love.”
— Publishers Weekly -
“A thorough account of the processed-food industry’s extensive efforts to dominate the American diet and increase consumption of its products, despite health concerns…Through exhaustive research and insider information, Moss achieves his goal of shining a light on the insidious tactics of the food industry. Readers of food lit and exposés will not want to miss this one.”
— Library Journal -
“Scott Brick keeps the narrative entertaining and intriguing. His full-bodied voice and expert pacing prevent the research and statistics from becoming dry. Further, he helps listeners navigate the controversial points regarding the policies of government and private entities that put the health of their organizations ahead of public health. As the fascinating links between food items, societal changes, dietary habits, marketing, and medical problems are revealed, Brick ensures that the relationships between these trends stay clear. He also provides moments of liveliness, such as when he impersonates Tony the Tiger’s iconic slogan: “They’re GR-R-R-R-R-R-REAT!”
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“This is a truly important book, and anyone reading it will understand why food corporations cannot be trusted to value health over profits and why we all need to recognize and resist food marketing every time we grocery shop or vote.”
— Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics and What to Eat
Awards
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A #1 New York Times bestseller
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A USA Today bestseller
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An Amazon Best Book of the Month for February2013
Salt Sugar Fat Listener Reviews
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" I can't claim to be surprised by anything here, but it has made me even more averse to processed food and troubled by the food companies' aggressive marketing in the developing world. I'm more interested in the nutrition aspects than the food marketing angle, but I can read other writers for that. With regard to the writing: I suspect that the book's structure presented challenges. Arbitrarily dividing it into "Sugar," "Fat" and "Salt" (in that order) required a sort of spiraling structure with overlaps and a good deal of doubling-back. This led to an overall sense of redundancy (I feel like I've been here before .....) and 4-5 incidents of near-verbatim sentence repetition. That could have been edited out, so I take point off for sloppy editing. Audio version: the reader made everything sound scandalous - even transition sentences. That was grating. "
— Holly, 2/19/2014 -
" As if the grocery store wasn't already ruined in my mind....HOLY CRAP I hate our food industry so much more now...Fantastic read... "
— Nicole, 1/27/2014 -
" Very, very informative. No more Doritos for me (even baked ones ). What shocked me the most was learning that fruit and yogurt bars, which I had been conned into thinking were healthy, have more sugar and less fiber than Oreos! They got me! "
— Angela, 1/22/2014 -
" Good information, but a little too technical for my taste. It's always interesting to see how the corporate food giants purposely try to get us addicted to foods and could care less about our health. "
— Jhawks3, 1/14/2014 -
" Great, great book for anyone interested in nutrition, obesity, or the processed food industry. Well researched and engaging, though a bit long at times on some of the history. It all relates to how our food system got to be the way it is today though, so worth it. "
— sleeps9hours, 1/12/2014 -
" Overall, I really enjoyed the insight provided by Michael Moss. It's always good to question big marketing and big brands, with the understanding that they don't always have your best interest in mind. However, Michael paints a very bleak picture, in which these companies care ONLY about building shareholder value with total disregard to the effects on consumers' lives. While this may hold true in some or most cases, I don't believe it's always true. You must take his writing with a grain of salt. Use it as a source for thinking critically about your life and health, but understand that not everyone is out to get you. Ultimately, "you" are the one who controls your life and your eating habits. "
— Laura, 12/8/2013 -
" Interesting look at the history of the junk food industry and how the sweet/fatty/salty foods are marketed: how the consumers' and government's want for healthy food was/is pitted against the consumers' desire for tasty, cheap, convenient treats and the industries desire for profit. "
— Christy, 12/5/2013 -
" VERY enlightening book! Has made me re think everything I buy at the store - Do I really NEED 2 tsp of sugar in the spaghetti sauce I eat? "
— Lori, 8/17/2013 -
" This book will dispel any notions that the food industry is at all interested in the nutrition or health of the American populace. An enlightening but frustrating read. "
— Kitty, 6/1/2013 -
" Everyone should be reading this book... Really good reporting & research. "
— Tegan, 5/15/2013 -
" I liked this book but it really lost momentum for me as the pages turned. There didn't feel like there was a plot line to speak of . . . which I still think is important even in non-fiction. "
— Jennifer, 5/12/2013 -
" excellent insights into the engineering of processed food "
— Ty, 4/16/2013 -
" This was surprisingly interesting. Makes me never want to buy a lunchable again. "
— Erin, 4/4/2013 -
" Be careful. This book can be depressing, but it is a must read if we are going to understand how the food industry is manipulating us. "
— Patti, 3/20/2013 -
" A fascinating account of how the food industry manipulates process foods in order to make us eat more of them. Not sure I will ever eat non-artisan cheese again. "
— Sandy, 3/17/2013 -
" Loved it. It will make you afraid to eat just about anything for a couple days, but it was wonderfully well researched and written. Definitely recommend it! "
— Michelle, 3/5/2013
About Michael Moss
Michael Moss is the author of the New York Times bestseller Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, among other books. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter formerly with the New York Times, a keynote speaker, and an occasional guest on shows like CBS This Morning, Dr. Oz, CNN’s The Lead, All Things Considered, and The Daily Show. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2010 and was a nominee for the prize in 1999 and 2006. He is also the recipient of a Loeb Award and an Overseas Press Club citation. Before joining the New York Times, he was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
About Scott Brick
Scott Brick, an acclaimed voice artist, screenwriter, and actor, has performed on film, television, and radio. He attended UCLA and spent ten years in a traveling Shakespeare company. Passionate about the spoken word, he has narrated a wide variety of audiobooks. winning won more than fifty AudioFile Earphones Awards and several of the prestigious Audie Awards. He was named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine and the Voice of Choice for 2016 by Booklist magazine.