Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

Salt, Sugar, Fat:  How the Food Giants Hooked Us

By

Michael Moss

Obesity, processed foods, marketing to kids, etc. are almost daily news today as we face a health epidemic, not just an obesity epidemic.  The food giants, large corporations have made it a science to lure the public, with a huge emphasis on children, into eating cheap, convenient, unhealthy foods.  Mr. Moss has done an excellent job of describing how these corporations have knowingly spent and made billions of dollars on these efforts and are hugely responsible for today’s health epidemic.

On April 8, 1999 representatives from Pillsbury, Kraft, Nabisco, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, Mars and Cargill met in Minneapolis to discuss the burgeoning obesity epidemic and what they should do about it.  Together these companies represented 700,000 employees and $280 billion in annual sales.  The presentation which was conducted by a representative from Kraft explicitly portrayed the obesity epidemic and why they as corporations were largely responsible and how they could now help correct it.  A well intentioned effort, however, it all came to naught because of the voice of one man, Stephen Sanger, the head of General Mills at that time.  Sanger was “the man” in those circles and no one defied him.  Thus, it was back to “business as usual” and they continued to pour billions of dollars towards the health epidemic we have today.

Who has heard of the “bliss point”?  This is a measurement largely credited to a man named Howard Moskowitz.  Howard is the guy employed by the U.S. Army who added sugar to Meals Ready to Eat (MRE’s) to make them more palatable to our service men and women.  From there Howard became a key player at General Foods and Phillip Morris and discovered the “bliss point” which is the precise amount of sugar or fat or salt that will snare the consumer.  By adding these cheaper, addictive ingredients instead of costlier, healthier ingredients Phillip Morris and company were able to pump up the value of their stock.

Consider Betty Crocker who is a fictional character invented by General Mills for the sole purpose of marketing their unhealthy, processed and refined foods.  Legions of women were hired to go out and give cooking classes in the name of Ms. Crocker which included recipes all containing the products of General Mills.  Ms. Crocker’s cookbooks have become a part of Americana lore.

It was determined by laboratories funded by these corporations that babies do not like salt for their first 6 months of life.  Strategies were invented and implemented to train these babies to “like” salt.  Many of those babies today are either dead from or suffer from hypertension.

I could go on and on; however, I’ll save that for Mr. Moss who has written an excellent eye-opening book.  I must close with Mr. Moss’s message, though…

We are in control!  Yes, we have been the victims of unfair marketing; however, we are the ones operating the knives and forks.  In the transparency of today, we must arm ourselves with the knowledge of healthy vs. unhealthy foods and use a little will power.  After all, when it all trickles down, we are the ones buying the foods and contributing to today’s and tomorrow’s health epidemic.

Thanks for reading,

Mike