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Michael Moss is the author of Salt Sugar Fat.

Health & Nutrition

Salt Sugar Fat Book Summary - Salt Sugar Fat Book explained in key points

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Salt Sugar Fat summary

Name: Salt Sugar Fat
Rating: 4.2 (134 reviews)
Author: Michael Moss

Michael Moss

How the Food Giants Hooked Us

4.2 (134 ratings)

19 mins

Brief summary

Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss is an eye-opening investigation into the processed food industry. The book explores how companies use science and marketing to make their products addictive, while contributing to America's obesity epidemic.

Topics

Cook Books Manipulation Overcoming Addiction Diet

Table of Contents

Salt Sugar Fat
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me: learn why you need to start eating home-cooked meals again.

Ask yourself, how often do you eat meals prepared only from natural, unprocessed ingredients?

If you’re like most people, probably rarely.

This is because ever since the 1940s, processed foods have become an increasingly prominent part of the diet of industrialized countries. While zapping a plastic tray in a microwave may be a convenient way of preparing dinner, these foods are unfortunately also chock-full of sugar, salt and fat – a very unhealthy trifecta.

In these blinks you’ll discover, among other things:

How Lassie played a part in the demise of the home-cooked meal.
Why, in the 1980s, the US government found itself stuck with a literal mountain of cheese.
Why any processed-food company trying to make healthier products is rapidly penalized by consumers.

After World War II, processed convenience foods replaced the ideal of the home-cooked meal.

In post-World War II America, change was afoot: Women who had traditionally stayed at home to cook and clean while their husbands worked began to take jobs of their own. This meant that they suddenly had less time for the arduous process of preparing home-cooked meals.

At the same time, the increasing prevalence of televisions in American homes meant that there was another disincentive for spending more time in the kitchen, as you might miss great shows like Lassie.

Sensing the opportunity in this shift, food companies began to produce more heavily processed convenience foods designed to be quick and easy to prepare.

One of the first companies to do this was General Foods, which introduced Jell-O instant pudding in the 1950s to immediate success. A slew of other time-saving foods and products followed, as consumers were increasingly willing to trade a bit of their wealth for more free time.

Of course, the ideal of the home-cooked meal was hard to shake, not least because 25,000 home economics teachers in high schools in America were still advocating it and teaching students how to make it.

To overcome this resistance to processed foods, the food companies recruited their own home economics teachers to advocate processed foods by holding their own cooking contests and giving cooking lessons to mothers and teachers.

The most famous example of such a teacher is the entirely fictional “Betty Crocker” character invented by an advertising manager. Her catchy slogans, signature cookbooks and showrooms illustrating the ease of heat-and-serve meals contributed significantly to the shift of American food ideals toward the factory-processed foods that dominate supermarket aisles today.

The impact on American diets was particularly great due to the immense power of the three favorite ingredients of the processed-food industry: salt, sugar and fat.

Humans crave sugar, which is why processed food contains lots of it.

We humans love the taste of sugar. This is because once upon a time, getting quick, concentrated calories like those in sugar increased our likelihood of survival, so our cravings provide an evolutionary advantage. We also love starchy foods like pizza, because starch can be converted into sugar. It’s no surprise then that the processed-food industry uses sugar to make us hunger for their products.

Our desire for sugar isn’t limitless though. At some point, things just get too sweet to be desirable. This means food companies need to identify the bliss point of sweetness for every food item they produce. This is the point at which enjoyability is maximized.

The consumption of sugar has continued to skyrocket despite increasing health concerns.

Today, almost everyone knows that eating too much sugar is unhealthy.

One of the first health issues connected to sugar was the radically increasing occurrence of tooth decay in 1970s America. One dentist, Ira Shannon, was so alarmed by the state of his young patients’ teeth that he began testing the sugar content of breakfast cereals, as food companies were not yet required to divulge product ingredients on packaging. To his shock he found that the sweetest cereals were the ones being advertised during children's Saturday morning cartoons.

We simply can’t get enough fat in our food.

The second favorite ingredient of the processed-food industry is fat. As with sugar, evolution has sculpted us to crave fat because it is loaded with calories, and gram for gram, fat actually has double the calories of sugar.

Unlike sugar though, there doesn’t seem to be an optimal bliss point for the amount of fat that we’d like our food to contain. It seems that more is always better.

Over the past century, cheese has become a huge health concern.

Perhaps the biggest fat-related threat to Americans’ health comes from a seemingly innocuous source: cheese.

But why is this?

Processed food delivers most of the average American’s salt intake.

Finally, let’s examine the third favorite ingredient of the processed-food industry: salt. Unlike sugar and fat, salt contains no calories, but it does contain a mineral that’s essential for the human body to function: sodium. Unfortunately, when the body gets too much sodium, it increases blood pressure, inducing hypertension.

In the 1980s, this potentially fatal condition was becoming a severe problem in the United States, as one in four Americans suffered from it. High salt intake was one of the culprits identified, as it was found that Americans were ingesting ten to 20 times the amount of sodium their bodies required.

Food companies lose sales if they try to be healthier, but government interventions hold some promise.

So what can be done about this unhealthy trifecta of salt, sugar and fat?

For a start, in some countries with similar problems to the United States, the government has stepped in to reduce the sodium content of processed foods.

Final Summary

The key message in this book:

The processed-food industry crams its products full of salt, sugar and fat because we consumers are irresistibly drawn to this trifecta. Unfortunately, this has led to severe increases in obesity, diabetes and heart disease in industrialized countries. The only remedy is for consumers to resist the temptation of salt, sugar and fat.

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What is Salt Sugar Fat about?

Salt Sugar Fat examines the rise of the processed-food industry in America and globally, and why it has been fueled by the liberal use of salt, sugar and fat. These three ingredients are near irresistible to us humans, but their overuse also comes with devastating health effects.

Salt Sugar Fat Review

Salt Sugar Fat (2013) delves into the world of processed food and exposes the tactics used by the food industry to make their products addictive. Here's why this book is worth reading:

It reveals the shocking manipulation techniques employed by food companies to make us crave their products, providing a wake-up call to modern eating habits.
Through extensive research and interviews, the book offers insightful and eye-opening stories that give readers a behind-the-scenes look at the food industry.
Carefully researched and thought-provoking, it offers a balanced exploration of the consequences of our food choices, prompting readers to reconsider their relationship with processed food.

Who should read Salt Sugar Fat?

Anyone who wants to eat more healthily
Anyone interested in why processed foods are so popular today

About the Author

Michael Moss is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has written for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

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