Book Review: Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss (Part 1)
Book: Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
Genre: Nonfiction
Publisher: Random House
Publication date: 2013
Pages: 446
Source: Library
Summary: Michael Moss, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2010 for research and writing about food safety issues, takes a longer and deeper look at the food industry in Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. Delving into the historical background and elucidating the current state of things, Salt Sugar Fat examines the obesity epidemic by shining a light on the ingredients that go into modern processed food.
Thoughts: I don’t usually review a book until I’ve finished it, but the library wants Salt Sugar Fat back to give to someone else. I’m not surprised–Michael Moss has been everywhere talking about this book. Since the effects of processed food is one of my biggest concerns, I’m glad that it’s getting the attention it deserves, even if that means that I have to read this book in shifts.
I got so much from Part One of the book, Sugar, that I decided that I’ll write my thoughts in three parts since it’s likely that I’ll end up reading the book in a piecemeal fashion.
I feel knowledgeable on this subject, so I was taken by surprise by all the things I didn’t know about the processed food industry.
Let’s start with the thing that made me mad, the role of juice concentrate. I don’t know about you, but when I see “juice concentrate” on a label I’m picturing a can of frozen orange juice concentrate. Not the healthiest of foods, perhaps, but I’ve always considered it a clever ingredient in recipes for a touch of sweetness while adding a bit of fiber and some micronutrients. Here’s the reality:
Juice concentrate is made through an industrial process that is highly variable, including any or all of the following steps: peeling the fruit, thereby removing much of the beneficial fiber and vitamins; extracting the juice from the pulp, which loses even more of the fiber; removing the bitter compounds; adjusting the sweetness through varietal blending; and evaporating the water out of the juice. At its extreme, the process results in what is known within the industry as “stripped juice,” which is basically pure sugar, almost entirely devoid of the fiber, flavors, aromas, and or any of the other attributes we associate with real fruit. In other words, the concentrate is reduced to just another form of sugar, with no nutritional benefit over table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup. Rather, its value lies in the healthy image of fruit that it retains….A company like General Foods can use this stuff and still put the comforting words contains real fruit on the box. (p. 134)
This makes me so mad because I’ve fallen for it, recently, even though I’ve seen other objections to it, just not worded in this way. I thought the worries were only applicable to diabetics or, worse, represented the ranting of the sugar prudes — people who consider the local maple syrup in my salad dressing to be a sin. This isn’t the first time I’ve dismissed the shrill nanny voices of our culture only to discover that they are closer to the mark than what’s written on the packages of the food I buy.
Did you know how big a role that tobacco companies have played in processed food for most of the last three decades? R. J. Reynolds bought Nabisco in 1985. Since then, and a much bigger deal, Philip Morris bought General Foods and Kraft. The two largest food manufacturers in the world are now under the umbrella of the world’s largest cigarette maker. No wonder the food industry has become so good at marketing products that we know, on one level, are bad for us and yet still find so irresistible. They have access to the play book of the champions in that arena.
I was surprised by how deliberately food companies target their most loyal customers. At Coca-Cola, we’re called “heavy users.” It turns out that, like many things, the use of a product like Coke follows the 80-20 rule — around 80 percent of the soda is consumed by around 20 percent of soda drinkers. A food or beverage company makes more money with less effort by getting existing customers to consume even more.
There are lots of studies about sugar that I either never heard about or didn’t remember.
A rat study from the 1970s found that it’s easy to fatten rats if you give them all they want of high-fat, high-sugar foods. It turns out just adding fat to the chow won’t do it, because the rats won’t eat enough of it. But if you give them a sweet treat, like candy bars, they will become obese in a few weeks.
They loved it, and this craving completely overrode the biological brakes that should have been saying: Stop. (p. 6)
Rats will lunge for cheesecake even after they have been trained to expect an electric shock for doing it.
Did you know sugar is an analgesic, a pain-reliever? And it works from birth. Studies have shown that a newborn will cry less if given sugar and that a young child will hold her hand in cold water longer if there is sweetness on her tongue. Children, with their need for energy-rich foods as they grow, are particularly susceptible to high-sugar products and appreciate foods that are much sweeter than adult palates like.
I was prepared to put food industry magnates in the role of tobacco producers, knowingly selling a product that had no redeeming characteristics. But as the book looked back at the 1950s, I could see how well-meaning people might have genuinely thought that convenience products were going to make the world a better place. All of us, particularly women, would be able to do finer things with our lives if our time wasn’t taken up by the hours it takes to make a pudding from scratch.
Even now, I struggle with the awareness of how much time I spend in the kitchen. Part of that, of course, is that we were sold on the notion that it’s more important to be a lab researcher working on a cure for cancer than it is to be a homemaker perfecting a cabbage salad. As it turns out, a daily dose of cabbage salad is probably one of the best defenses to cancer. But, as a society, we don’t value that in the same way. The decline of home economics as a respected profession that could have countered the convenience food message is a sad tale told in the first third of this book.
Appeal: Obviously, Salt Sugar Fat got my neurons firing! Yours will fire, too, if you care about the obesity epidemic, the industrial food complex, or what to eat today.
Other Reviews: Would you like to see the thoughts of someone who actually managed to read the book first before spewing words on the screen? Check out Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss by Niranjana Iyer at Brown Paper.
Beth Fish Reads hosts Weekend Cooking every Saturday. Her post today will have links to reviews, recipes, and restaurant adventures.
Thanks for that review, it was fascinating. I’ve found that the more I work out, the more I crave salt instead of sugar, but that one square of chocolate easily turns into more. Safer to limit what comes into the house so it’s not there in weak moments!
Wow. This is so interesting to me. Scary too! I really need to read this.
I remember you saying a week or so ago how the library wanted the book back! I’m so glad that you decided to write a review on part one. This wasn’t on my tbr list but now it is. Thanks!
Joy, I didn’t know that about juice concentrate! Luckily we don’t do juice very much. Happy Easter
And even in kiddo snacks are those words “made from real fruit concentrate.” Now I know a load of baloney. It’s frightening and even though I know that I can sort of control what goes on in our house, if my daughter is at her grandparents all bets are off. Even with daddy.
I haven’t read this one yet but it sounds like it deserves (and needs) all the buzz it is receiving.
I saw the author on The Colbert Report, and his comments about the tobacco companies buying the big food companies and doing exactly what they did to get people hooked on cigarettes by getting people hooked on fat, salt and sugar stunned me. A great review here, Joy.
fat..sugar…fat…all my favs!!
of course, he is right. I have seen him on TV recently and he makes so much sense. Step one is to cut out processed food…
A yes sugar! From salt and fat most people at least know that they are bad for you. But sugar is still a bit of denial. I have cut out most processed foods of my life. At least for daily cooking![🙂](https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/svg/1f642.svg)
Lots to think about here. I can see why you’re mad! The average consumer doesn’t stand a chance against what these big corporations are pulling. Didn’t know any of that about juice concentrate. Looking forward to your discussion of the fat and salt sections.
Hi Joy,
Processed foods are the bain of our modern life in one way or another and avoiding them completely is virtually impossible, because of the myriad ways manufacturers have of fooling us consumers.
We could all turn vegetarian, but then just look at what the crops in the fields are sprayed with in order for them to have a longer shelf life, or to make them look and taste better!
We have juice every day, but we would rather have a little less than perhaps we should and make sure that we buy one with no concentrates in it.
I guess the old stock answer is probably the best one ‘Everything in moderation’ and I think that is probably the root cause of all our problems, we just consume too much and far more than we actually need!!
I’m afraid that I am guilty as charged!!
An interesting post this week.
Yvonne
It’s crazy and scary how they hid the truth from us. I don’t eat much processed food at all (hot sauce & mustard being the exceptions), but I hate that I’ve been fooled by the fruit juice scam.
This book is on my to-read list also. I’m glad you learned so much just from the first section! It creeps me out that two major food giants are owned by a tobacco company. I love baking things from scratch but it makes me think more deeply about taking 10 steps away from even cooking with sugar if it that addicting. Funny that we now have to fight a war on on our food! Thanks for such a revealing review and I look forward to part 2 and part 3.
Rats will lunge for cheesecake even after they have been trained to expect an electric shock for doing it.
SO alarming, yet quite believable if I think about it. I bet there would be similar results if humans were involved in this study.. but I guess that’s the whole point! Argh! So disturbing.
The last paragraph of your post today is so telling. I agree with you 100%. It is such a huge shame that true home economics has been all but squashed out by the processed food industry and probably the FDA, too.
Great post, Joy.
I have been hearing about this book eeeeeverywhere. I can’t wait to read it. It reminds me of how I felt after I read Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. Books like this are so enlightening! Thanks for a great review.
Hello, I am 14 years old and I really enjoyed this book. Does anyone have anything to say about the book regarding specific examples of good word choice, theme, organization, or anything else that I could talk about in a paper.
I will appreciate any feedback.
Thank you very much
I was interested in how the “bad guys” in this book were portrayed as real people, most of whom had really good reasons for what they did, at least in the beginning, when they were developing foods that now seem to me to be pretty much pure evil.
The review I linked to at Brown Paper said this better. She said: “I was also struck by Moss’s carefully non-judgemental tone which will appeal to a wide range of readers; your howl of outrage will find no echo here.”
So, you might look out how he manages to be so nonjudgmental about facts that many of us find maddening. I suspect it has something to do with allowing us to see the whole person in a way that we can imagine being in his shoes and faced with the options and information that he had at the time.
Like I said, I haven’t read the whole book yet, but I’m curious if it’s going to read like 3 separate books or if the last two sections will build on what we learned on the first. If he manages that latter, that organization would be interesting to explore in a paper.
If your assignment allows you to put in some of your own thoughts, I would want to know how this book changes how you will eat and how you will advise your friends to eat.
Good luck!
Wow, this one sounds good (and kind of scary). I will be interested to read the rest of your thoughts when you get the book back.