by Michael Moss
First published 2021
Food can hook us harder than cigarettes or alcohol, and the industry knows it. Michael Moss reveals how corporations exploit our evolutionary wiring for sweets and convenience. Companies like Nestlé, Mars, and Kellogg's have created fifty-six varieties of sugar to trigger cravings in every product. They transform our natural preference for quick meals into dependence on processed foods. When health trends emerge, manufacturers rebrand junk food as diet products that carry the same addictive properties. As obesity climbs, they now promise ingredients that will magically end compulsive eating. Moss documents the legal fights, marketing schemes, and laboratory research that created our current health crisis. He shows how the processed food industry manipulates our instincts, our emotions around eating, and regulatory gaps to prioritize profits over public wellness. This investigation from the author of Salt Sugar Fat demonstrates why our food choices have never carried higher stakes.
Genres: business, social-issues, non-fiction, health, investigative-journalism, food
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: corporate-corruption, investigative-journalism
Setting: United States
Period: 21st-century
304 pages · Hardcover · Random House
Content warnings: addiction