Tonight I heard Michael Moss, author of Salt, Sugar, Fat speak about his 4 year journey crawling through the underbelly of the processed food industry. Obesity now claims 1 in 3 adults and 1 in 5 children. But it turns out, it’s not all our lack of will power, but the adulteration of our food to make it irresistable. And addicting. He uses industry words: bliss point, salt flavor burst, snack ability, moreishness. Salt, sugar, and fat are used to make low priced addictive foods. Salt creates a flavor burst and masks off flavors. Yogurt is now as sweet as ice cream, pasta sauce can contain the same amount of sugar as several Oreos. This teaches us to expect sweet in all foods. No wonder broccoli needs a makeover! Flavors are used in small amounts so you never quite get enough of the taste, so instead of one serving of crunchy snacks, the whole bag gets downed. These are “hyper engineered foods”. And we’ve been manipulated. I realize this is not a nice story to tell right before the Super Bowl. My child already requested I go to the grocery store for snacks, not the natural foods coop for Sunday. “What are you going to serve, celery?” Actually I was thinking of thin sliced, crunchy kohlrabi and dip…..
