Food that’s Junk - Book Review

By Michael Moss

Diet Coke, Pepsi, boxed lunches and/or potato chips are so bad that I try not to consume them. Okay, at parties I will gravitate towards the chips but I try to work it off by the next day. I usually eat vegetables, salads and once a week I eat meat with water as my main drink. I don’t have an over-consumption problem but many do. What is it about “junk food” that many can’t resist the temptation to over eat?

I recently read, “Salt, Sugar, Fat” by Michael Moss that solidifies that obesity is a serious problem; manufacturers of “convenience” products add so much salt, sugar and fat that we can’t help ourselves but to continually eat more. Nothing in is this book was anything that I didn’t already know – how bad processed foods are but it was interesting to learn how manufacturers purposely “draw-us-in” to eating massive amounts of this food. Everyone should read this book and fight against manufacturers that produce food that really shouldn’t be eaten.

Now that I read this book, I look even closer to how much salt is in our products especially Italian sausage that I eat sporadically. I’m not a fake; I really do enjoy eating vegetables but I do crave meat sometimes. A package of five sausages and each link has 770 mg (32%) of salt with 24 g of fat (37%). I am now looking at the frozen package, which now I have to reevaluate if I will ever buy this again. Unbelievable! No wonder a high percentage of people are gaining weight. 

According to the author of “Salt, Sugar, Fat” we should only be getting 2300 mg per day and if you have diabetes, hypertension or kidney disease it should only be 1500 mg – less than a teaspoon a day. After I just ate that sausage, I’m pretty much done with my salt intake. If you eat all your meals from a box, it’s not hard to surpass that salt limit.

The author further discusses the difference between salt and sodium. Salt isn’t the real problem it is “sodium,” which is a chemical element in salt. Consequently, everyone needs salt in their diet to be healthy but as I described the sausage above, everyone consumes more than ten times the recommended dosage; hence, obesity and high blood pressure. You would think that all the salt shakers should be banned but during a study in the early 90’s the salt shaker was not the problem – adding sodium to packaged food was the culprit.

In the manufacturers defense, sodium is added so products won’t taste like cardboard. Cargill (largest supplier of salt and other grains) tested a new product that wasn’t as bad as sodium, potassium chloride. It’s salt without the bad properties of sodium. However, a few problems resulted: higher cost and research showed kidney problems for the elderly and children. With this new development, it wasn’t considered a good argument to switch.

Depending on the usage, as in chips or cereal, the salt is added differently. Salt is produced in grades: a light flake or heavy depending on its usage. The book discussed many scientific studies on the best practices in salt utilization along with sugar and fat.

What I learned that was interesting is that there is a “bliss point” or formula for products from sugary snacks and/or drinks to salty potato chips. This means that there is a point when a product becomes either too sugary or not sugary enough. Hence, manufacturers conduct studies on finding this “tipping point” on how much sugar is adequate for optimum consumption; again, it is all in the science. The author spoke with many scientists that perfected their “products” so we consumers will crave increasingly.

How did these “convenient” products hit the shelves anyway? It began when families got busy and the women entered the workforce. It became increasingly hard to cook all meals from scratch. Moreover, the “Leave it to Beaver” mother having the dinner on the table was becoming a thing of the past. Women didn’t have time for this arduous task.
My favorite story in the book is how a scientist (Al Clausi) began his career at General Foods creating instant pudding. He took the time down from hours to a mere 30 minutes –patented formula that took him over two years to perfect. Right before Clausi had his patent, a competitor perfected their instant pudding but the problem was it kept thickening (the chemical reaction wouldn’t stop), turning it to rubber. Clausi studied the coagulation of milk and thickening process that made him a legend at General Foods - Patent No. 2,801,924. Genius! Instant Jell-O pudding that we’ve taken for granted is now a product mainstay.

Stories such as these were interwoven into the book that created depth and understanding of the complex issues that is not easy to solve. How do we get manufacturers to create healthy products? I travel down the aisles to tons of varieties of cereal to some of the worse products – “Lunchables.” This product was created to entice consumers to eat boloney by making it fun. Marketing, commercials, fun packaging is over loading us as consumers to buy – convenience and ease.

Now that I’ve read this book, I am more conscious than ever about “salt,” my vice. Even my sugarless Whole Wheat Brand Flakes cereal has 170 mg of salt without the milk. And, I am avoiding Italian sausages with an overabundance of salt that I will need an extra bottle of water to flush out my system.

As I read books and watch documentaries, I remember what a nutritionist said – buy ingredients not food. Preparing your food is not only healthy and good for you but you know what’s in there – not ingredients that you can’t pronounce. For me, if food is in a box, I keep on going.

I highly recommend this book but it might be unsettling at times.

Moss, Michael (2013) Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us.
http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/1400069807