In The End of Overeating, published in 2010, former FDA commissioner David Kessler argued that we live in an "obesogenic" society in which companies are constantly tempting us with products high in salt, sugar and fat. This meme has caught on: in Salt, Sugar Fat, released in February, New York Times journalist Michael Moss repeats Kessler's accusation that food manufacturers seek to ensure that their products approach our "bliss point," by loading them with—you guessed it—salt, sugar, and fat.

It does appear that the main cause of our expanded girths is that we have been consuming more calories. Most of the increase in obesity has occurred since the mid-1980s (rates rose to around 13 percent in the 1960s but stayed more or less constant until the early 1980s), which coincides with a sustained binge on the part of a significant portion of the American public. The amount of calories consumed per day by an average American man rose from about 2,080 calories per day in the late-1970s to 2,400 in the mid-1990s to 2,600 in the early 2000s. Equivalent figures for women are 1,500, 1,650, and 1,850, respectively. Meanwhile, we seem to be expending about the same amount of energy as we did in the 1970s: In a 2003 paper, Harvard economists David Cutler, Edward Glaeser, and Jesse Shapiro concluded that "The available evidence suggests that calories expended have not changed significantly since 1980."

OK—so we've been eating too much. But are those food and drink companies to blame? Well, most of the increase in calories does seem to have come from pre-prepared snacks. Cutler et al. explain that the increase in availability of pre-prepared food and drink made it easier for us to eat more by lowering the "time costs" of preparation. That makes sense. In 1913, we certainly could have eaten lots of chips and cake and drunk lots of juice but it would have taken considerably more time to prepare them than it takes to open a few packages, so most of us would not have had the time to snack in the way that we do today.

But there is a twist. Cutler et al. calculated that even taking into account the consequences of our increasing girth, we have benefitted on net from the wider availability of pre-prepared foods and drink because they have reduced the amount of time we have to spend in the process of preparation. In that light, all the efforts made by food and drink companies to identify our "bliss point" seem benign, not malign as in the Moss account.

Meanwhile, contrary to the dire assessments of people like David Kessler and Michael Moss, companies are beginning to realize that they can provide nutritious food and beverages in ways that enable people to maintain a healthy weight. A group of CEOs of food and beverage companies has created the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, which seeks to encourage the public to manage their weight better by "balancing calories in with calories out." Because of the significant presence of member companies in the supply of food and beverages, the Foundation has great potential to communicate important messages about how most effectively to maintain this healthy balance. Beyond that the Foundation is reaching out directly to teachers, who have the potential to influence how kids think about diet and exercise. According to its website, the Foundation has so far reached over half of all U.S. elementary schools; that's pretty impressive.

An eye opening look at what's in our food and how our eating habits have been manipulated.

Review published 5/7/13:

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.

Interesting book that really gets you thinking about the food you eat and how we are 'tricked' in our every day food purchases.

Quite long and descriptive, sometimes a history lesson which can be hard to read as it goes on quite a bit.

The book was an easy read, however I did not find any information that was terribly groundbreaking regarding the food industry. Eat natural foods...kinda easy.