Michael Moss, author of Salt, Sugar, Fat, talks about how the food companies hooked us
Moss spoke with the Star about “crave-ability,” Wall Street and the taste of wet dog hair
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Tony Cenicola
/ The New York Times
The bliss formula is one of many insights in Salt, Sugar, Fat, the book by New York Times reporter Michael Moss.
“Bliss point” —
that’s what food scientists call the perfect sugary sweetness in a
product that’s calculated to send the consumer over the moon.
The bliss formula
is one of many insights in Salt, Sugar, Fat, the book by New York Times
reporter Michael Moss that looked inside the processed food industry to
see how multinational companies hooked consumers on their products.
Moss, the keynote
speaker at the Association of Local Public Health Agencies conference in
Toronto on June 3, spoke with the Star about “crave-ability,” Wall
Street and the taste of wet dog hair.
Q: Is processed food made to be addictive?
A: I use the
A-word sparingly. There’s no word the industry hates more than
addiction. They argue that there are technical thresholds that should
bar you from comparing food to narcotics.
That said, their lingo
for describing the allure of their food is every bit as revealing. They
use words like “snack-ability,” “crave-ability” and “more-ishness.” The
bottom line is that all their efforts go into making their products as
alluring and attractive as possible. That ranges from the formulation —
especially with salt, sugar and fat — and the advertising, marketing and
packaging.
Q: The new
Coca-Cola ad about obesity and watching calories recently launched in
Canada. What’s behind that ad — concern about obesity or a push for
their diet products?
A: It’s a
reflection that soda sales have been declining for years. Hats off to
Coca-Cola for talking about obesity publicly. But I defer to the
nutrition experts. They say it’s fine to run ads talking about obesity,
but Coca-Cola needs to look at its own marketing strategy. They want
Coca-Cola to make meaningful changes to the way it markets its full
sugar sodas around the world.
Q: Many food companies now offer healthier versions — low-fat, reduced-sodium. Aren’t they good alternatives?
A: That’s the
point the companies make, that they offer choices. But the mainline
products are sold strategically in the store and promoted more. It’s one
thing to offer choice and another to encourage people to eat the better
choices.
In the healthier
versions, it’s a typical move to lower one ingredient and increase the
other bad boys. A low-fat yogurt can have as much sugar as ice cream. A
low-salt product can be loaded with calories from sugar and fat.
Q: We know too much salt, sugar and fat is bad. In your research, what surprised you the most?
A: That companies have known this for years, even as they continued to add heaps of salt, sugar and fat.
Second, the companies
are more dependent on salt, sugar and fat than consumers are. These are
miracle ingredients for them that do more than provide allure.
Thirdly, scientists
and food executives don’t actually eat their own products, especially
when they’ve run into health problems themselves.
Q: What do you mean by “do more than provide allure”?
A: Salt, for
example, acts as a preservative. It’s an inexpensive way to provide
flavour, in place of more expensive herbs and spices. And it can mask
the bad flavour that creeps into processed food, especially reheated
meat, which gives off what the industry calls warmed-over flavour, or
WOF. A food scientist described it as the taste of wet dog hair.
Q: Ultimately, what will it take to get rid of unhealthy processed food? Federal regulations limiting sugar, salt and fat?
A: Consumers
must be louder with their concerns. We’re at a tipping point. Concern is
increasing for companies and/or government regulators to respond.
Second, we need long-term education, the kind taught in home economics
about how to shop, cook and be mindful of nutrition.
Q: You toured Nestlé’s cutting-edge food research lab in Switzerland, but left disappointed. Why?
A: I had
unrealistic expectations because Nestlé has some 700 scientists hard at
work. But Nestlé is a company in business to make money.
I ran into this
dichotomy. The company that markets products like Hot Pockets, the
microwaveable snack some people call the poster boy of the obesity
crisis, is at the same time trying to engineer healthy products.
Bottom line, I don’t
view the processed food industry as the evil empire that intentionally
set out to make us obese or otherwise ill. They’re companies doing what
companies do, selling as much product as possible to make money.
Q: The real culprit is Wall Street?
A: Many food
executives say the ultimate 800-pound guerrilla is Wall Street. When a
company tried to do the right thing by consumer health they faced
enormous pressure from analysts and shareholders to keep revenues up. A
former CEO of Philip Morris thought food companies might embrace
regulations as a way to give them some cover from the pressures from
Wall Street.
Q: The comparisons and tie-ins to the tobacco industry are fascinating.
A: I was so
surprised to learn the history of Philip Morris. It became the largest
food manufacturer in North America when it purchased General Foods and
Kraft in the 1980s. In the late ’90s, it told its food companies they
would face as great, if not greater, issues of public trust over salt,
sugar, fat and obesity as it had over nicotine. It nudged food people to
find ways to lessen dependence on salt, sugar, fat.
Q: But it didn’t work?
A: Kraft, to
its credit, launched an anti-obesity campaign and did some amazing
things, but other companies didn’t join in. It faced fierce competition.
Q: What’s your junk food weakness?
A: I crave
potato chips. Potato chips have the holy trinity: salt, fat and sugar —
the potato starch is converted to sugar. Yet now I know what goes into
them and that’s empowering. When I find myself going for the second
serving, I’m more able to control that.
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