Food companies understand that salt, sugar and fat “are their holy grail.” By Morgan Korn on Yahoo’s Daily Ticker
According to Michael Moss, the Pulitzer prizing-winning reporter and author of the new book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, executives at the major food behemoths – Kraft, General Mills and Nestle – have known for years that the sugar, salt and fat added to their cereals, soups, tomato sauces and hundreds of other food products have put millions of individuals’ health at risk.
But the quest for bigger profits and a larger share of the consumer market has compelled the processed food industry to turn a blind eye to the dangers and consequences of eating those very products.
Moss’ book exposes the inner workings of the food industry and details how these food giants spend millions of dollars to make the food we eat more addictive. After reading his book, which took Moss four years to write and report, one may never want to consume another Cheez-It cracker or Lunchable again.
How do the food giants trick consumers? Moss gives several examples:
“At Cargill, scientists are altering the physical shape of salt, pulverizing it into a fine powder to hit the taste buds faster and harder, improving what the company calls its ‘flavor burst.’”
“Scientists at Nestle are currently fiddling with the distribution and shape of fat globules to affect their absorption rate and, as it’s known in the industry, ‘their mouthfeel.’”
“To make a new soda that is guaranteed to create a craving, it requires scientists employ the high math of regression analysis and intricate charts to plot what industry insiders call the “bliss point” – namely, the precise amount of sugar (or fat) that will send consumers over the moon.”
Even though consumers may think food companies are trying to help their waistlines by offering “low fat” or “low sodium” items, that’s not actually the case. Companies will add extra sugar to “low fat” products and “low sodium” offerings tend to have both higher quantities of sugar and fat.
Moss says the food companies profiled in his book understand that salt, sugar and fat “are their pillars, their holy grail.” These companies employ cadres of scientists “who specialize in the senses” and the industry “methodically studies and controls” the use of salt, sugar and fat.
Salt, sugar and fat are the foundation of processed food
Processed foods are designed “to make people feel hungrier,” Moss writes. In essence, “the processed food industry has helped foster overconsumption.”
As a result, rising obesity rates have become a global problem. In the U.S. alone, two-thirds of adults are either obese or overweight. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that nearly half of American adults will be obese by 2030. One in six American children is obese today.
Although overeating and lack of exercise are often blamed for weight gain, cheap food and the general convenience and availability of it have also contributed to the obesity crisis.
Moss provides startling evidence of just how much food people are consuming these days:
The average American eats 33 pounds of cheese every year. That’s triple what we ate in 1970.
We consume 71 pounds of caloric sweeteners each year, equivalent to 22 teaspoons of sugar per person, per day.
The addiction to salt and sugar does not end with consumers. The food giants’ “relentless drive” to reach maximum profits at the lowest possible cost has given these companies no incentive to use real, wholesome ingredients. Sugar, for example, not only sweetens but “replaces more costly ingredients, like replacing tomatoes in ketchup to add bulk and texture,” according to Moss.
“It costs more money to use real herbs and spices,” Moss says. “Economics drive companies to spend as little money as possible in making processed foods. That’s the dilemma.”
Food executives need to seriously start examining the consequences of their actions.
“They’re coming under increasing pressure from consumers,” Moss argues. “We care more and more about what we’re putting into our mouths and bodies. The food industry is… where tobacco was in the 1990s – at the verge of losing the public trust. That’s a very dangerous spot for the food industry to be in.”
Watch the interview video with Michael Moss here >
‘Only sugar processors have the brass neck to present it as anything other than an ingredient we would do well to eat as little of as possible.’ Photograph: Richard Wadey/Alamy
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".
Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
by Michael Moss
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".
There's nothing earth-shatteringly new in Moss's assertion that sugar, salt and fat are the unholy trinity of bad food. Food campaigners on both sides of the Atlantic have been saying as much for decades. But the nutrition debate is evolving, and this book is behind the curve. In both the US and UK, the characterisation of saturated fat as a dietary antichrist is being challenged, not by the junk food industry, which makes a mint from spewing out supposedly healthy low-fat products, but by nutritionists and scientists. For instance, a recent review of scientific studies on fat, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, concluded that "there is no convincing evidence that saturated fat causes heart disease".
The problem here is that Moss doesn't even reference this discussion, merely damning fat in a generic way. So it sounds as if he believes that natural foods that contain it, such as cheese, cream and red meat, are devils incarnate. Many health commentators will have no problem signing up to the argument that the chemically hardened, industrially refined and wholly corrupted oils used to make products such as crisps and fried chicken are undeniably bad for us, but Moss's all-out attack on fat is more contentious.
Indeed, this failure to draw a distinction between processed junk and natural food is the flaw that runs through this book and weakens its otherwise worthwhile attack. Sugar, salt and fat get lumped together in physiological terms as addictive substances.
On sugar, however, Moss is on strong ground. Only sugar processors have the brass neck to present it as anything other than an ingredient we would do well to eat as little of as possible, so shining a light on it is most welcome. In recent years, the presence of wanton quantities of sugar in popular processed foods, such as breakfast cereals, has largely been overshadowed, even hidden, by the public health establishment's obsession with fat. Currently, sugar is the dietary baddie that we can all agree to hate.
But in the case of salt, which Moss appears to condemn as an unalloyed dietary disaster, he shoots himself in the foot by pointing out that more than three-quarters of the salt Americans eat comes from processed food. Where is the evidence to show that this ingredient, which we have had in our diets for millennia, is a problem when consumed in small quantities in homemade food? Does anyone really get addicted to the salt they add as they cook?
Ultimately, the reader is left wondering whether Moss actually enjoys eating, or whether, after years of listening to food industry personnel, he has simply come to view it as a minefield of threatening, and less threatening, substances.
The book relies heavily (and at times tediously) on interviews with, and little pen portraits of, industry insiders, many of whom go out of their way to avoid their own company's products. He uses these people and their anecdotes to tell the story, but this slows the book down, and gets in the way of analysis.
Moss sees his book as "a wake-up call to the issues and tactics at play in the food industry", and it does succeed brilliantly in evidencing the systematic venality of corporate junk food and drink interests. It's naive, he warns us, to think that we can make them behave more responsibly. "Making money is the sole reason they exist," he writes. But as "a tool for defending ourselves as we walk through those doors", his book is less convincing.
Readers may find themselves asking what Moss thinks we can do, other than being generally empowered by the insight he has given us into industry dirty dealings. I longed for him to urge his readers to "jerf" ( just eat real food), or urge us to look beyond the well-stacked crisp, confectionery and fizzy drinks aisles so kindly provided by our large food retailers, and explore outlets that are part of a growing alternative vision for our food system. But in the final analysis, Moss ducks that opportunity: "They may have salt, sugar and fat on their side, but we, ultimately, have the power to make choices," he says. If only it was that simple.
What follows is my interpretation of an adaptation of a new book called, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. The adaptation was recently published in The New York Times Magazine, in an article entitled, The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food. It tells an intricate tale of how food companies have been using food science to do the obvious — Sell. More. Food.
That’s what food corporations are supposed to do.
One of the reasons I talk about how food is marketed to us by giant corporations is that I hope to lift the veil just a bit, and that by doing so the marketing will lose some of its potency. The next time you see a fast food commercial (or soda, or food-in-a-box, or Monsanto, or fill in the __blank__), perhaps you will immediately go into deconstruction mode.
What are they really doing with this ad? How are they trying to make me feel? How are they hoping to influence me? What are they leaving out? Everything in a commercial advertisement is planned, staged, story-boarded, and executed to benefit the advertiser…not you.
Advertising is legalized lying. - H.G. Wells
Skepticism does not bestow upon any of us a blanket of immunity, but it helps us to think more clearly. However, as the prey evolve to become faster and smarter, so do the predators adjust to survive.
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself. — Peter Drucker
I would like to believe that the same skepticism can be aroused about the food industry, through learning more about their practices. Know this, friends: the food industry hires scientists who they pay to create addictive foods. It may sound unethical, but they don’t even hide this fact. It is imperative to stay ahead, to the extent that we can.
I talked about this in Latest in Paleo, Episode 42: Counterfeit Food. And, in this segment of 60 Minutes, you can watch scientists straightforwardly admit their motivation to addict you to their flavorings and to cause you to overeat.
Just Like Big Tobacco
“As a culture, we’ve become upset by the tobacco companies advertising to children, but we sit idly by while the food companies do the very same thing. And we could make a claim that the toll taken on the public health by a poor diet rivals that taken by tobacco.” — Kelly Brownell, Yale Professor of Psychology & Public Health
These words were spoken at a meeting of big food CEOs back in 1999. They were the masters of the food Universe who reign over such brands as General Mills, Pillsbury, Kraft, General Foods, and the like, under which almost every recognizable processed food under the sun is produced and distributed.
General Mills then-CEO, Stephen Sanger, had heard enough, though. Consumers are fickle. General Mills provides low sugar, low-fat, added whole grain, and other options to satisfy all tastes. General Mills would continue to act responsibly toward its shareholders by providing these options, but most of all by addressing the consumers who don’t care at all about nutrition…who value taste over everything…who spend big bucks on packaged foods.
“Don’t talk to me about nutrition,” he reportedly said, taking on the voice of the typical consumer. “Talk to me about taste, and if this stuff tastes better, don’t run around trying to sell stuff that doesn’t taste good.”
Thus, the meeting, which was an attempt to improve food industry practices, came to an end. Extinguished.
“What I found, over four years of research and reporting, was a conscious effort — taking place in labs and marketing meetings and grocery-store aisles — to get people hooked on foods that are convenient and inexpensive.”
The adaptation of his book in The New York Times Magazine goes on to illustrate the following:
Food and beverage companies targeted rapidly growing minority communities
Multivariate consumer testing data is dumped into computers whose algorithms choose winning combinations of color, ingredients, and labeling
There is a so-called engineering approach to creating consumer foods
The “bliss point” consists of strong, initial sensory intensity followed by mid-level sweetness
“There’s no moral issue for me. I did the best science I could. I was struggling to survive and didn’t have the luxury of being a moral creature. As a researcher, I was ahead of my time.” — Howard Moskovitz, Ph.D. in Mathematics, Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology, and “Food Optimizer” for the food industry
The military has conducted satiety research to help ensure soldiers in the field eat enough calories instead of becoming bored with their MREs and tossing them out half-eaten
Sensory specific satiety helps to tell the brain to stop eating, and therefore popular products, like Coca-Cola and Doritos, rely on formulas that do not contain a single, overriding flavor
Kraft Foods’ Lunchables came about as the result of a focus group of working moms who desired to provide their children with healthy lunches at school — and after selling over $200 million dollars worth in the first year, they eventually came to include M&Ms, Snicker Bars, Capri Sun sugar drinks, cookies, and such.
‘They’ve got too much sugar, they’ve got too much salt. Well, that’s what the consumer wants, and we’re not putting a gun to their head to eat it. That’s what they want. If we give them less, they’ll buy less, and the competitor will get our market. So you’re sort of trapped.” - Geoffrey Bible, former CEO Philip Morris
A chief scientist at Frito Lay expressed concern that his company was using science to thwart health concerns, instead of to address them
Snacking habits and purchases do not necessarily decline as consumers age — in fact, they go up.
Chip manufacturers use a $40,000 device to simulate chewing a chip in their attempts to find the perfect “breaking point”
Snack makers are looking to make a salt substitute that will encourage consumers to snack more…since they’ll feel less guilty about eating less salt
“While people like and enjoy potato chips, they feel guilty about liking them…unconsciously, people expect to be punished for ‘letting themselves go’ and enjoying them. You can’t stop eating them; they’re fattening; they’re not good for you; they’re greasy and messy to eat; they’re too expensive; it’s hard to store the leftovers; and they’re bad for children.” — Ernest Dichter, Psychologist, from a report prepared for Frito-Lay in 1957
You can thank Dichter for smaller packages and the industry’s discontinuation of the word fried.
Forever Young
All of the bullet points we’ve covered here range from alarming to, perhaps, fist-waving. But one thing really stands out for me: that as consumers age, they don’t stop buying junk food. In fact, they continue to purchase even more. This is likely due to having become larger from gaining weight and actually requiring more calories to sustain themselves.
But what about the decision making?
This explains why I see so many full-grown adults in the grocery store pushing around shopping carts filled with neon packaging, squeezable this, bendable that, and color-changing whatnots — just as if a typical 7-year old was doing the purchasing.
An argument can be made that typical modern-day dogs never really grow up. Perpetual puppies. They are fed, they’re groomed, and they’re coddled for their entire lives. They never hunt. They never work. They don’t roam in free packs, learning from each other. They’re nourished with biscuits. They beg.
Sure they’ve survived. But have they, really?
Will beg for biscuits.
And what is it about the human condition that has potentially created this same effect in us? Have we been so removed from our food, from direct work, from each other…that we aren’t really growing up, experiencing real life, and maturing into adults?
I’m fascinated by this topic and I look forward to your comments and discussions. What will it take for people to really begin opting out of the modern industrial, processed food system?
If you would like to purchase Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, please consider using this link to help support my work on this blog. Also, this article will be featured in the next episode of Latest in Paleo…don’t miss it! Thanks!