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 othe
Grace Cary/Getty Images
toggle caption Grace Cary/Getty Images
Hooked author Michael Moss says processed food companies appeal to our childhood nostalgia: What we eat is all about memory. Grace Cary/Getty Images
If you re someone who has turned to snacking on junk food more in the pandemic, you re not alone. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Michael Moss says processed food is engineered to be craveable, not unlike a cigarette or a hit of cocaine.
His 2013 book,
Salt Sugar Fat, explored food companies aggressive marketing of those products and their impact on our health. In his new book,
Hooked, Moss updates the food giants efforts to keep us eating what they serve and how they re responding to complaints from consumers and health advocates.
If you're someone who has turned to snacking on junk food more in the pandemic, you're not alone. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter
Cheap, Legal And Everywhere: How Food Companies Get Us 'Hooked' On Junk peoriapublicradio.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from peoriapublicradio.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Cheap, Legal And Everywhere: How Food Companies Get Us 'Hooked' On Junk wjsu.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wjsu.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.