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.
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—114 slides in all—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, with the industry in pursuit of its win-at-all-costs strategy, 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.
“As a feat of reporting and a public service, Salt Sugar Fat is a remarkable accomplishment.”— The New York Times Book Review
2 有用 GW_Parables 2020-03-05 21:47:46
这本书第一眼看揭幕食品巨头但对我有益的领域很丰富了。用过三次了第一次研究酱油和盐第二次是食品工业化第三次关于商业模式的思考了。我感觉自从corporate america占领了地球..很多商业模式是被诱导被制造出来的,消费者挺可怜的其实..比如看电影吃爆米花看球喝啤酒..过生日要吃蛋糕开party年轻人要喝酒否则不酷..奢侈名品玩着各种把戏刺激心智不全的女性买买买..中产家里是个孩子都要学钢琴学奥... 这本书第一眼看揭幕食品巨头但对我有益的领域很丰富了。用过三次了第一次研究酱油和盐第二次是食品工业化第三次关于商业模式的思考了。我感觉自从corporate america占领了地球..很多商业模式是被诱导被制造出来的,消费者挺可怜的其实..比如看电影吃爆米花看球喝啤酒..过生日要吃蛋糕开party年轻人要喝酒否则不酷..奢侈名品玩着各种把戏刺激心智不全的女性买买买..中产家里是个孩子都要学钢琴学奥数..弱智题目要花几十万培训学不会还急的发烧甚至跳楼..不差钱的倒无所谓了..但大部分人手里那点现金质量低还要被银行地产榨一轮..所以就只能对着社交媒体羡慕嫉妒恨了情绪不平衡然后就生病了 韭菜田里割起来这模式也不难理解吧..韭菜的虚妄成就了少数分子的光鲜。脑残太容易被agitate了 (展开)
0 有用 莫里安 2021-11-15 10:10:35
这么多年教育下来懂的都懂了。更多是对食品工业的woooow