Take a trip down the aisles of your local grocery store and you’re apt to find an endless supply of pre-packaged food designed to keep you eating. Investigative reporter Michael Moss’s new book Salt, Sugar, Fat takes a hard look at the junk food industry and makes some startling revelations that has been getting serious attention in the press.
Even ingredients that appear healthy like fruit juice are processed to such extremes that they are not what they seem.
The junk food industry has figured out how to design foods so that we will eat them and keep on eating them. Cheetos are just fluffy enough so that our body thinks they have no calories. One half a cup of Prego pasta sauce has as much sugar as two Oreo cookies.
The Globe and Mail wonders if we should consider banning junk food, which seems like a long shot, at best. But Moss raises the possibility of at least curbing junk food when he shows how Finland managed to curb its salt habit by labeling salty foods.
The attention Moss’s book has received so far has been enormous. The question now is: Will it last?