Food addiction is a scary prospect—if your free will is being exploited, how can you even begin to help yourself? So GQ asked Moss what we could do, and he went deep: on the long connection between Big Food and Big Tobacco, the shady origins of nutrition facts, and how understanding the marketing tricks might help you make healthier choices. GQ: Michael Moss: In my last book, Salt Sugar Fat, I tried to end on this hopeful note: that ultimately it's up to us to decide what to eat and how much. Then almost immediately, a reporter got in my face with the question, "Michael, how can you say this? Isn't this stuff you're writing about addictive like drugs?" And I'm back-pedaling, hemming and hawing, because I tried to avoid the “A” word, not just because the industry hates that word more than anything, but because it seemed too harsh for food. It really threw me. Can these foods in fact be thought of as being not just a very, very bad habit, but addictive in the ways that other substances are? And are there lessons to be drawn from the world of addiction that could apply to food?