by Michael Moss
First published 2013
Americans consume 33 pounds of cheese and 70 pounds of sugar annually. They take in 8,500 milligrams of salt daily, twice the safe limit, with almost none coming from table salt. The source is processed food, a trillion-dollar industry. Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Moss reveals how food corporations deliberately created these consumption patterns. He examines major brands like Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Kellogg, Nestlé, and Oreos. Moss takes readers inside corporate laboratories where scientists engineer the "bliss point" of sweet drinks and manipulate fat's molecular structure to improve "mouth feel." He documents how companies borrowed marketing strategies from tobacco firms to deflect health concerns. Executives admit they cannot manufacture genuinely healthy products because strict regulation would destroy their business model. The book demonstrates that salt, sugar, and fat form the foundation of the entire processed food sector.
Genres: business, social-issues, non-fiction, health, 21st-century, food
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism
480 pages · Hardcover · Random House