This post is a summary of the book "Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" by Michael Moss.
The book was read and summarized for the reading app "bookbhook.com" in December of 2016.
PART THREE SALT
People Love Salt
In the
1980s, news reports focused the nation’s attention on a growing danger: high
blood pressure, the silent killer. Several factors were cited including
obesity, smoking and diabetes. The other was salt.
The
problem was sodium, one of the chemical elements in salt. Americans were eating
so much salt that they were getting 10 times the amount of sodium the body
needed. Where was all this salt coming from? It was coming from the processed
food industry. Food manufacturers were abusing their influence on America’s
eating habits. The bulk of their meals came from the supermarket, where the
price of convenience was the salt that these groceries contained. The companies
making these products were not just adding salt. They were dumping sack after
sack of it. More than sugar and fat, the salting of processed food had become a
way to increase sales and consumption.
Among the
5 basic tastes, salt is one of the hardest to live without. Salt or sodium
chloride gives food their taste appeal – from bacon, pizza, cheese and French
fries to pickles, salad dressings, snack foods and baked goods. People crave
salty foods. The supermarket is a goldmine of salt-heavy foods. The idea of
salt inducing feelings of joy seems crazy, given that it is a mineral, dead and
devoid of any sustenance. Sugar and fat, by contrast, come from plants and
animals and are loaded with the calories people need to avoid withering away.
The
desire for salt has some basis in evolutionary history. When everything lived
in the ocean, animals had no problem getting the sodium they needed to survive.
They wallowed in salty water. On land, however, the early climate was hot and
dry. The human mouths that crawled out of the sea developed the salty taste
receptors.
But
people today are devouring salt. Salty foods are linked to drug abuse. The blood gets overwhelmed when processed food is eaten,
flooding the system with its heavy loads of salt, sugar and fat. Narcotics and
food that is high in salt, sugar and fat, act alike. They reach the brain’s
pleasure zones, those areas that reward us with enjoyable feelings for doing
the right thing by our bodies. Salt was similar to sex, voluntary exercise,
fats and chocolates in its possessing addictive qualities.
Most
people never feel true hunger pain, the result of being starved for nutrition. We
can go without food or water. The body has enough calories. But people who fast
for a day feel awful. Your body expects that you will feed it and if you don’t
do it, you feel awful. We eat not so
much for pleasure as we do to ward off this awful feeling. People are drawn to
foods that are heavily salty, sweet or fatty for reasons other than hunger.
They are drawn to these foods by emotional cues and the wish to avoid the fear
of hunger. The food companies created a desire for salt where none existed
before. Babies love sugar the instant
they are born. But babies do not like salt. They don’t like it at all until
they are 6 months and even then they have to be coaxed.
The salty
taste that drives people to keep eating popcorn until the bag is empty is just
the start of salt’s powers. Manufacturers view salt as the most magical of the three pillars of processed foods, for all the things it can do beyond exciting the
taste buds. Salt is the great fixer. It corrects myriad problems. Cornflakes
taste metallic without it. Crackers are bitter and soggy and stick to the roof
of your mouth. Ham turns so rubbery it can bounce. Salt is the convenient
antidote for the processed food industry which is heavily reliant on reheated
meats. Companies add sodium to delay the start of bacterial decay, to bind
ingredients and to blend mixtures. They have become essential components in
processed foods making them look and taste attractive and last longer on the
shelf.
The Same Great Salty Taste Your Customers Crave
The salt
that the company Cargill sells to food manufacturers is no ordinary salt. In
the processing plants that Cargill owns, this rock is changed into a vast array
of shapes and designs. It is smashed, ground, pulverized, flaked and reshaped
in hundreds of ways, all with one goal in mind: to maximize its power in food.
Cargill sells 40 different types of processed salt, from a fine powder to large
granules. Its salts are finely tuned bliss machines. The popcorn makers get a
flake that clings to every nook and cranny of the snack. Processed meat and
cheese get a salt that has been crushed into a texture-less, fine powder, which
makes for easier absorption by our bodies and brains.
The
flavor that salt imparts to food is just one of the attributes that
manufacturers rely on. It makes sugar taste sweeter. It adds crunch to crackers
and frozen waffles. It delays spoilage. It masks the bitter or dull taste that
hounds so many processed foods before salt is added.
Without
salt, processed food companies cease to exist.
************************
1. What do I gain by reading this summary?
Read to know how and why
the food companies are hooked on salt, sugar and fat. Their desire to achieve
the greatest allure for the lowest possible cost has drawn them to these 3
ingredients. Sugar not only sweetens but adds bulk and texture. Fats can be slipped
into food to stimulate overeating. Salt has miraculous powers to boost the
appeal of processed foods.
Read how the manufacturers
of processed foods have used the salt, sugar and fat as weapons to defeat their
competitors and to keep us coming back for more. They have doubled their
efforts to dominate the American diet.
Read about Howard Moskowitz,
the legendary food scientist who engineered the new flavor for Dr. Pepper. Also, learn about how Cargill became the $134
billion food industry giant that it is today.
