Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss

Salt, Sugar, Fat is an exhaustive (and sometimes exhausting to read) account of the history of processed foods. Michael Moss’s book does not merely talk about the health problems that come from eating too much salt, sugar, and fat. He also carefully examines why we crave these ingredients and how the major food companies fine tune various foods, snacks in particular, so that we will want to eat the whole bag.

There have been calls from consumer groups and even occasional attempts by the food companies to try to make healthier foods in more reasonable quantities. These calls are in response to our nation’s obesity epidemic. So far there hasn’t been major progress in decreasing obesity in the United States. What Salt, Sugar, Fat reveals is how the urges of consumers for foods containing large amounts of salt, sugar, and fat, the low cost of those three ingredients, and pressures on major food companies from Wall Street to consistently bring in large profits work together to make decreasing obesity a major challenge.

John