The article in the url below is a review of a recently published book that seeks to highlight the state of the food that we eat:
"America's eating habits have changed radically over the past 40 years. We consume more and more food of less and less nutritional value. The nation's adult obesity rate is now 42.4%."
One of the reasons this shift toward unhealthy eating has occurred, the author argues, is demographic (many more two-parent working households, leaving less time to cook), while another is technological:
"The microwave oven gave birth to an industry of highly processed foods larded with fats and oils."
Rather than preparing foods that the industry knows we like or might be healthy, however, the author of the book proposes a more cynical explanation of how we got to where we are:
"In Hooked, Michael Moss, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of Salt Sugar Fat (2013), [asks:] What if the foods we're scarfing down have been designed and marketed to become addictive?"
In essence, Moss argues that food is more addictive than other substances we consume, such as tobacco or even hard drugs, because of the way that it enters our bodies:
"Mr. Moss notes that, while it takes 10 seconds for the brain to feel the effects of cigarettes, sugar's effects are felt 20 times faster—and salt and fat don't take much longer than that. The disparity stems from nicotine needing to enter the bloodstream to reach the brain, while sugar and salt take a shortcut through the taste buds. But the tongue is outmatched by the nose when it comes to driving our eating decisions. While there are 10,000 taste buds, there are 10 million olfactory receptors, and they can detect hundreds of scents."
While food itself can be addictive, the processed products that are manufactured by the modern-day food industry are designed specifically to prey on these weaknesses. The industry achieves this by featuring heavily those substances that are the most addictive (i.e., salt, sugar, and fat) in combinations that are most effective and, as a result, have become everyday staples:
"Those foods are the highly processed and sweetened concoctions that dominate the American diet: cereals, sodas, fruit juices, cookies, packaged meats, as well as the many condiments (like salad dressings and pasta sauces) that are packed with sodium and sugar. Consuming these items delivers intense and immediate pleasure and creates a need that fits Mr. Moss's broad definition of addiction."
Crucially, however, the author argues that this is a deliberate approach, rather than something that has simply happened over time:
"Mr. Moss argues that the industry's growth has been enabled by its 'manipulation of our instinctual desires,' not least through marketing and sales strategies. He describes companies super-sizing their products (such as the 'Double Stuf' Oreo) and creating packaging that can remain upright (thus easing consumption while, say, driving). One byproduct of these strategies, observes Mr. Moss, is that snacks—often processed products high in convenience but low in nutritional value—now account for about 25% of daily calorie consumption. Social norms have adjusted themselves accordingly: It has become 'socially acceptable to eat anything, anywhere, anytime,' Mr. Moss writes."
And, in a nice twist of irony, having created the problem of obesity, the same food companies then seek to capitalize on the guilt associated with the overconsumption of their products:
"Mr. Moss notes that as nutrition-less eating expanded our waistlines, food companies acquired low-calorie food lines (like Lean Cuisine) and diet franchises (such as Weight Watchers). It's as if 'Philip Morris had cornered the market on nicotine patches,' he writes. He says that food companies lobby to keep nutrition labels practically meaningless to most Americans."
Take care
David
David Chandler
© Sage Publications, 2020
Lured into Gluttony
By Matthew Rees
March 12, 2021
The Wall Street Journal
Late Edition – Final
A13
