by Michael Moss
Random House 2013
480 pages Non-Fiction
The Shortlist ebook
My granddaughter aged 20 months, sits in her highchair. Her
lunch is some strawberries, some carrots, and a hotdog with cheese in the
middle. She pokes a few strawberries in her mouth and drops all the carrots on the
floor. Then she eats one slice of the hotdog with cheese. With a smile on her
face, she looks at me and says, "Umm, delicious!" In an instant, the
hotdog slices are gone. Another child lost to "salt, sugar, and fat."
In his book with the same name, Salt, Sugar, Fat, Michael Moss has
created a highly readable study of the food industry and its drive to create
ever more edible concoctions to please the palate and the pocketbook and keep
you coming back for more. Food scientists strive to "optimize" their
products to maximize our cravings for them. You all remember the slogan,
"betcha you can't eat just one," for Lays potato chip. Well, that was
a food scientist at work, creating a product with just the right amount of salt
and fat to make you want to eat those chips until the bag is empty. And then
there is the "bliss point" for the soft-drink industry--the point
where you open up the can and go "Ahhh." Combine the right amount of
sugar, the right amount of salt and a whopping dose of fat and you have food
science in a nutshell (with salt on it of course.) The whole reason for adding
things to food is to optimize products to maximize cravings. Moss says: "These
are the pillars of processed foods, the three ingredients without which there
would be no processed foods. Salt, sugar and fat drive consumption by adding
flavor and allure. But surprisingly, they also mask bitter flavors that develop
in the manufacturing process. They enable these foods to sit in warehouses or
on the grocery shelf for months. And, most critically to the industry's
financial success, they are very inexpensive."
The preface of the book is very enlightening. In the late
1990s when the epidemic of obesity was just being recognized, a group of food
industry leaders, including CEOs of many of the food giants, gathered together
to discuss business strategy. The leader of the meeting was trying to impress
upon the businessmen that they were most likely going to need to change their
strategies if they were going to weather the coming storm of criticism about
their industry regarding obesity. At the end of the meeting, no one was
convinced that they wanted to change any strategy, and most went back to their
companies and added more salt, sugar and fat to their already laden products.
Moss's book is very well researched, and he also acts like a
journalist doing many interviews. I found the book very helpful as my husband
and I continue to rid our lives and our pantries of the junk that has weighted
us down all our lives. Our mothers were part of the 1950s when convenience
foods were just coming into their own. Mixes, frozen foods, packaged cookies,
TV dinners and chicken pot pies. My oh my! The scourge of our generation. After
reading Salt, Sugar, Fat, I renewed with vigor my nutritional quest. I am now
reading nutritional information on every single item I buy, shopping only the
outside aisles of the store, and emptying my cupboards of snacks. If I don't
eat one, I will never eat the whole bag. I am proud to say that we are making
good progress.
The grocery chain where I shop, Meijers, has a big promotion
every couple of months where they offer dozens of items on a 10 for $10 sale
with the eleventh item free. Last week for the first time they had nearly as
many fresh items on the sale as they did processed items. So for every can of
Spaghetti o's, there was an avocado; for every bag of cookies, there was a bag
of lettuce. I am proud of the company for making the decision to promote fresh
items. My challenge for this year is to try to not buy any processed food items
when I go to the grocery. Is it possible? Hope so!
You might also like to read Taste
What You're Missing by Barb Stuckey. Stuckey is a food scientist and she
tells about how and why salt, sugar, and fat are added to foods from a food
science point of view. Her intent is to show us why these elements are
necessary in making palatable food. A good companion to Salt, Sugar, Fat.
Following this review, I am going to look at a book I just
received from the publicist, Foods that Harm; Foods that Heal. It
discusses hundreds of food items and what they do to the body. Look for it.
The New York Times review
Interview with Michael Mossat at Bon Appetit magazine: http://www.bonappetit.com/blogsandforums/blogs/badaily/2013/03/salt-sugar-fat-michael-moss.html
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