Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the food giants hooked us by Michael Moss

How did I not get a review of this fantastic book published before today? I had the fantastic good luck to read this book in galley proof and was absolutely blown away by what Michael Moss found out about the processed food industry. In the non-fiction book, Moss uses his investigative reporting skills to detail how the food giants have very skillfully and purposefully manipulated what goes into our food to serve up incredibly unhealthy doses of salt, sugar, and fat. The food industry has known about the dangers of driving people to obesity for decades, Moss reports, and some in the food industry warned -- internally, at least -- that the penalties to the food producers would be significantly greater than the billions the tobacco industry had to pay for its knowing complicity in hiding the dangers of nicotine. In separate sections of the book, Moss outlines how the food giants have manipulated salt, sugar, and fat to find the perfect combination-- the 'bliss point' -- of food that will make consumers crave more and more of their product, regardless of the repurcussions. It's not all gloom and doom, however. Moss shows how some in the industry, along with a few outsiders pushing for reform, have attempted to bring about change. This is an important work that deserves a place on the shelf of books for health classes in schools, and an important read for the larger (in every sense of the word) population.