Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

By Michael Moss

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

Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese and seventy pounds of sugar. Every day, we ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt, double the recommended amount, almost none of which comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food, an industry that hauls in $1 trillion in annual sales. In Salt Sugar Fat, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how we ended up here. Featuring examples from Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Frito-Lay, Nestlé, Oreos, Capri Sun, and many more, Moss’s explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, eye-opening research. He takes us into labs where scientists calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages, unearths marketing techniques taken straight from tobacco company playbooks, and talks to concerned insiders who make startling confessions. Just as millions of “heavy users” are addicted to salt, sugar, and fat, so too are the companies that peddle them. You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again.
 
Praise for Salt Sugar Fat
 
“[Michael] Moss has written a Fast Food Nation for the processed food industry. Burrowing deep inside the big food manufacturers, he discovered how junk food is formulated to make us eat more of it and, he argues persuasively, actually to addict us.”—Michael Pollan
 
“If you had any doubt as to the food industry’s complicity in our obesity epidemic, it will evaporate when you read this book.”—The Washington Post
 
“Vital reading for the discerning food consumer.”—The Wall Street Journal
 
“The chilling story of how the food giants have seduced everyone in this country . . . Michael Moss understands a vital and terrifying truth: that we are not just eating fast food when we succumb to the siren song of sugar, fat, and salt. We are fundamentally changing our lives—and the world around us.”—Alice Waters
 
“Propulsively written [and] persuasively argued . . . an exactingly researched, deeply reported work of advocacy journalism.”—The Boston Globe

“A remarkable accomplishment.”—The New York Times Book Review

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9780679604778

Michael Moss

Michael Moss works in the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute and/or the Information Services Planning Unit of Glasgow University, UK.

Reviews for Salt Sugar Fat

[kemilyh1988 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great; I haven't stopped eating Oreo's and Cheez-Its, but this book at least informed me on why I should consider stopping.

[lucaconti-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

amazing book, it will change Your life.

[addunn3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very interesting read, and a bit scary. The author details the use of these three substances in our foods and why it has been so difficult to curb their use.

[kmajort · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Like "Supersize ME" you learn some things you don't really want to know.....

[annhepburn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very thought-provoking book that reminded me of some things I knew, but are easily forgotten. It's not a treatise against salt sugar and fat in general -- it's more about the insidious nature of processed food. Seeing inside of these companies, with first-person accounts from current and past staff members, gives this a unique perspective on the issue. The author is very objective, fair and balanced in his narrative.

I found both the facts about human gastronomy equally as interesting as the history of marketing and the interesting beginnings of our largest food production companies.

Very recommended -- but in small doses. It's a bit much to take in all at once, but I enjoyed reading one chapter per day over the last few weeks.

[iambookish-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What an eye opening book! Everyone in America should read this book and become more aware of what is in the foods we are purchasing in the grocery store. We are fatter because the process foods we eat have increased the amounts of salt, sugar and fats they put in those convenience foods we all buy. It's frightening and I won't be shopping at the grocery the same way again.

[paulrx04 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Very good, and accurate,, ALL True

[zbaxter-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a little breathless in places, but presented a mix of solid research, interview background and narrative that was, I thought, mostly successful. Rather than structure by timeline, Moss splits the book up into the three areas - the sugar, fat and salt - of the title, and introduces a story about their introduction as a key additive for the American diet, and their rise as a superstar. Woven into the story is the tale of our (sometimes treacherous) tastebuds, the drive of big business to make profit and get us hooked on their food, and a tiny amount of social roles of food in shaping and determining food popularity.
I feel as though the split narrative meant that some parts had to be repeated, and that the emphasis of each component was diminished by the need to make each new section's lead character be portrayed as the biggest problem. This detracted from a nuanced picture of the triple-pronged role of these food components in the overall narrative Moss was constructing.
Having said that, his discussion of lunchables (which appears in all three sections) is a tour de force of deconstructing the variables that come into play when talking about factors such as consumer repeat buying, offloading cheap and declining-in-popularity foods, the combination of sugar/fat/salt, our desire to 'play' with and control our food (even if packaged) and the need of big business to reduce costs while increasing sales. Worth reading, but you may, like me, get frustrated at the lack of a clear timeline and the occasional repetition.

[tigerlms · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

How did I not get a review of this fantastic book published before today? I had the fantastic good luck to read this book in galley proof and was absolutely blown away by what Michael Moss found out about the processed food industry. In the non-fiction book, Moss uses his investigative reporting skills to detail how the food giants have very skillfully and purposefully manipulated what goes into our food to serve up incredibly unhealthy doses of salt, sugar, and fat. The food industry has known about the dangers of driving people to obesity for decades, Moss reports, and some in the food industry warned -- internally, at least -- that the penalties to the food producers would be significantly greater than the billions the tobacco industry had to pay for its knowing complicity in hiding the dangers of nicotine. In separate sections of the book, Moss outlines how the food giants have manipulated salt, sugar, and fat to find the perfect combination-- the 'bliss point' -- of food that will make consumers crave more and more of their product, regardless of the repurcussions. It's not all gloom and doom, however. Moss shows how some in the industry, along with a few outsiders pushing for reform, have attempted to bring about change. This is an important work that deserves a place on the shelf of books for health classes in schools, and an important read for the larger (in every sense of the word) population.

[audacity88_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Unlike Michael Pollan's books, this one didn't leave me with any new insights. I can believe the food industry has tricked us into buying unhealthy stuff, but I already knew that their concoctions were unhealthy, so I didn't gain any actionable insights from reading this.

[4daisies · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Everyone who is at all concerned about their health and how processed foods contribute to our current health crisis should read this book. It is a real eye opener and I hope it makes us all wiser in the choices we make in the grocery stores of America

[jeremy_palmer_40 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Read just about half of it. Narrative is not particularly interesting to me. Should have been much shorter, in my opinion.

[pattylee-621744 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Well written exposé that should be required reading in high school and everywhere. So it really is true- you are what you eat. Mega corporations profit billions by slowly killing those who eat its products- and causing a monumental health care crisis more serious and more costly than heroin or cigarettes or alcohol. The target is all of us and our children,

[katesherrod · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For me, this was just another booster shot in my efforts to inoculate myself against processed foods. I had stayed pretty far from Michael Pollan's good advice to "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." I can't call this book eye opening because I've read many of its kind, but I will say it's an excellent example of its kind. Now excuse me, I have a batch of homemade granola in the oven.

[toobusyreading · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's amazing we aren't all obese, diabetic, and hypertensive. And it's no thanks to the food industry, who seems to forget that “food” should be the operative word.Although I consider myself to be a fairly informed consumer, and don't buy much processed food, I still buy enough to not be good for me. This look at the formulation, selling, and marketing of processed food is eye-opening, even for someone who is relatively well informed.So the industry wants to make lots and lots of profit, and spends lots and lots of money, figuring out how to do that. So their goal is to find the “bliss” point, to want us to crave more and more. And they are highly successful. What is truly diabolical is that the government is in bed with them, promoting and even subsidizing this garbage, while supposedly fighting obesity and the other diet-related health issues at the same time. And we're paying for it.I hate reading about animals studies, and there were some in here, but not too many and not too graphic. I did have a minor quibble with the author when he repeatedly referred to the “raw” pizza in Lunchables. The components were separate and not hot, but they were not “raw.”I don't understand why people don't use their grocery budget to buy better food for their family, and it wasn't until a few years ago that I learned that many impoverished neighborhoods have no markets where you can get real fresh food. The author also talked about that. He relayed a story of a woman in an impoverished neighborhood who took a taxi, despite her tight budget, to a real grocery store so she could buy fresh food for her kids. One day she didn't have breakfast food, so she got the best thing she thought she could get in the convenience story – a yogurt and granola bar for each of them. Which, as it turns out, was nutritionally worse than a traditional candy bar. It is really sad how the industry, and with help from our government, brainwashes us, but we have a choice. For most of us, we just have to be educated enough about food to make the right choice. It is reprehensible that some areas do not have that choice.Even if you are fairly well informed about processed food, you will most likely learn from this book. I certainly did. And what was reinforced is my belief that we have to be our own advocate when it comes to what we put in our bodies.I listened to an Audible unabridged version, well narrated.

[deldevries · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is a guided trip through grocery story and down memory lane of advertising and marketing. It is presented as a straightforward story of how the processed food companies have sold us the goods over the years by designing "food" that we wanted and needed on a psychological level. I read this two years after starting to eat less processed food and sugar ... so this book fits my mindset very well. Just eat real food and forget the processed xxxx that is being marketed to you. Interesting comparison to big tobacco techniques through Kraft, it seems obvious that tobacco isn't good for you. But food should be good for you, right?

[klburnside · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Some interesting parts, but somewhat boring and repetitive.

[sovranty · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It seems the majority of the packaged foods we eat are no longer foods, but foodstuff that tastes like food. If you haven't already started thinking about what you eat or what is involved with the mass production of packaged foods, this is a good place to start. Each section, Salt, Sugar and Fat, can be read independently of each other. As such, there are a few points that are repeated, but not to the point of distraction.

[joeydag · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I stopped reading this after finishing the first section, the section about fat. There are interesting stories here about food design, such as the "bliss point", and the statistics about food obesity, and the corporate life in the food industry, but I decided to skip ahead to the last chapter and declare that I'm done. The arc of the book is obvious. The way the food industry designs their products does not have the public health as its first object. Profit is. I may return to read the stories involved in fat and salt but not right now.

[wyvernfriend · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a deeply interesting book about how, in order to maximise profits our food has been tailored to be as close to addictive as makes little or no difference and this has caused huge problems with health and other issues. There are also huge problems with research on nutrition and food being mostly conducted or supported by big food conglomerates, making it difficult to get research that is for the well-being of people and not the well-being of a corporation.It made me think a lot about the foods I eat and how I should help myself. It asks more questions than it answers and one of the most interesting things he does is talk about the diets of some of the executives and senior scientists.

[daphneh-2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a must read for anyone concerned about their health and diet.

[ursula_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I suspect that if you are a certain age, you can track your life against the foods discussed in this book. Sugary cereals and Hungryman dinners in the 1970s and early 1980s, then giving your kids Lunchables and Capri Sun juice bags. And maybe when you were an adult, you weren't completely sucked in and knew that these things weren't the best options, but "it's only once in a while." (In my case, Capri Sun took over my kids' lives - they had them with their lunches, they had them at soccer practices, after games, at parties ....) And you might expect that you'll be made to feel terrible for how you ate or how you fed your kids. But let's be real - you already feel bad enough about that. This book isn't looking to make you feel worse. It's looking to make you more aware of how exactly you got sucked into using all those foods against your better judgment.It's fascinating, really. The book covers the processes of creating these foods and the advertising that sells it to us, as well as the science behind why we crave them. It was interesting to me to hear how the industry and its scientists started off with non-evil intent (preserving foods to make them more easily available no matter where you lived, and decreasing the amount of labor required to feed a family) and eventually became a monster (cereals that are 70% sugar). I liked that the author kept from demonizing the scientists who worked on these foods, too. Often, their inventions either got away from them or they simply became wrapped up in a scientific problem without seeing where it was leading outside of their lab. I didn't learn anything here to change my eating habits (I did that years ago), but I did learn plenty. You'll never watch a commercial or read the front of a food package the same way again.

[shetreadssoftly · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us is by Michael Moss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist. While Salt Sugar Fat may seem like a nutritional guide, it really is a look at the history of the convenience food industry and their use of sugar, salt and fat in their products. Moss takes us inside companies like General Foods, Kellogg, Coca-Cola, Kraft, and Nestle, and shows us the development of some famous products. From the lab research to the marketing campaigns, Moss delves into what the food giants do to entice us not only to try their products, but to crave them and keep coming back for more.

Part of this requires finding the bliss point for the food. Moss writes: "For all ingredients in food and drink, there is an optimum concentration at which the sensory pleasure is maximal. This optimum level is called the bliss point. The bliss point is a powerful phenomenon and dictates what we eat and drink more than we realize. The only real challenge for companies when it comes to the bliss point is ensuring that their products hit this sweet spot dead on. (Location 515-518)."

Of course it is sugar, salt, and fat that people enjoy and the food giants would not have products without these key tastes. Combine the bliss point in the convenience foods with clever marketing campaigns and it's no wonder people are deceived by what the labels really indicate. It is not the presence of sugar, salt, and fat in foods, but the large quantities found in convenience foods that may end up spurring a national debate on health. Diabetes, high blood pressure, and obesity are all linked to the highly processed foods and their phenomenal amounts of sugar, salt, and fat.

Yes, we all knowingly buy the soda, chips, cookies, and cheese that may be undermining our health. One of the questions may be at what point are the food companies responsible for the unhealthy amounts of the sugar, salt, and fat in the things we are buying? Aren't we responsible for our own choices? But aren't they also responsible on some level for the deceptive advertising on products? Or the marketing of these products to children? I think these questions have actually been asked for years with no satisfactory answers.

While I'm not going into specifics, I see enough examples of unhealthy lunches being provided to children by parents who, I truly believe, think they are providing a healthier lunch than what the schools could provide. The sugary drinks, convenience yogurts, snack packs, prepackaged meals, sugary processed fruits.... While I can't hold the food giants responsible for parental choice, I can't help but wonder if these highly processed foods teeming with salt, sugar and fat were not available wouldn't these kids be taking a healthier lunch? Of course, looking at the other side, these foods normally do ensure that the child will be eating some lunch. Obviously, I'm not going to solve the questions here, and we all need to accept the fact that the food giants will not be giving up these three key ingredients.

In the epilogue Moss writes: "It had taken me three and a half years of prying into the food industry’s operations to come to terms with the full range of institutional forces that compel even the best companies to churn out foods that undermine a healthy diet. Most critical, of course, is the deep dependence the industry has on salt, sugar, and fat. Almost every one of the hundreds of people I interviewed in the course of writing this book—bench chemists, nutrition scientists, behavioral biologists, food technicians, marketing executives, package designers, chief executives, lobbyists—made the point that companies won’t be giving these three up, in any real way, without a major fight. Salt, sugar, and fat are the foundation of processed food, and the overriding question the companies have in determining the formulations of their products is how much they need of each to achieve the maximum allure. (Location 5662-5668)"

Will this book change me? It may certainly make me more intentional in the grocery store. All of the processed convenience foods were originally imagined as occasional fare rather than a staple or all inclusive part of our diet. Salt Sugar Fat may be part of the clarion call that sends more people back to preparing most meals from scratch. However, I think even Moss would admit that to expect people to give up all convenience foods will likely not happen, and in the end he doesn't provide any answers to the problem.

Very Highly Recommended

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Random House via Netgalley for review purposes.

[michigantrumpet_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A sobering examination of commercial food's hyperutilization of sugar, salt and fat, intentionally aimed at increasing the products' addictive hold and increasing sales. Michael Moss compellingly details how corporate bottom lines override the consequences to customers' health and well being. Shocking to learn just how much more sugar, salt and fat has been added over the years to products than what I remembered as a kid. Read this book and you will look at food marketing and processed foods with a jaundiced eye.

[fighterofevil · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

finally, finished this book.

[csweder · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is packed with facts.

At least I think they are facts. All of the authors citations are inconveniently at the end of the book. There isn't any indication while reading that the author is telling facts or opinion....which is annoying (I prefer directive foot or end notes so I can tell exactly what facts are coming from where).

But in the book is a pretty scary story that I do believe is true. All of our (processed) food is stripped of its nutritional values to increase profit for companies, extend shelf life, and get us to eat more.

[jillian_kay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This one is a game changer. I will never look at cereal the same way again.

[dchaikin_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

15. Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (Audio CD) by Michael Moss, read by Scott Brick (2012, 480 pages in paper form, listened Jan 29 - Mar 10)A business history covering things like Coca Cola, Dr. Pepper, the history of cereal and how it only kicked off by making it unhealthy, the why of processed cheese, the insane marketing involved in all the food success stories and a deep look into the conundrum of the processed industry. Moss has great disturbing stories to tell, and fascinating people to interview. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this (Some readers may be turned off by Scott Brick's tone, so be sure to sample before you commit to audio...but then I liked how he read).That conundrum - sure, all the big food processing companies are out to make money and happy to make the US and the world ill in the process. But what is strange is that whenever some kind of healthy urge sparks up somewhere, and food companies try cutting back on the salt, sugar and fat, the first thing they notice is that they start to lose market share, and quickly revert. Also, it's worth nothing that without salt, fat and sugar, there isn't much left to processed foods - just tasteless, textureless stuff. The most disturbing thing - how food works so much like an addictive drug and how processed food companies survive by making us addicted to their foods - especially the salt and sugar - and how they are able to design foods we can't stop eating - and the irony of the trouble this causes them when consumers start avoiding the foods they know will lead them to overeat. Of course, it's no surprise that none of the corporate, marketing or scientific experts interviewed eat processed food.

[mamzel_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is such an eye-opener! So many things I already knew or suspected are laid out in black and white with supporting evidence about how the food corporations are ignoring the health and welfare of customers for the bottom line. What did come as a surprise is how the food companies and cigarette companies became allies either by coming under a common parent company or by utilizing each other's strategies to overcome the public's fear of ingredients in their products.I think this book will help me in my fight for better health by changing my shopping habits. I will be better able to ignore the chip displays and easily stride past the shelves of soda to get the unprocessed foods I know are better for me. I just needed the positive reinforcement!

[goet0095 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A tough but important read about the processed food industry and how it has made Americans dependent upon salt, sugar and fat. It was really discouraging to read about all of the techniques food companies employ to encourage people to continue buying their products through their use of ingredients and advertising...and how successful it is, especially with children.
This book was eye-opening; I always knew that processed food wasn't nutritious, but now I have more specific facts that will make me more aware about my food choices when I'm at the grocery store. One of the most surprising tidbits was about cheese--Americans consume about 33 pounds of cheese per person each year. Much of this is because food companies have changed cheese into an ingredient--something you add to a dish, instead of something that you'd eat on its own.
There was a lot of overwhelming information in this book, but the author tied it up nicely at the end with a few ideas about how we can fix this problem.