Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Quotes from Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss

So I am still reading Salt Sugar Fat and all I can say is WOW--almost done.  The book is in 3 Parts, Sugar, Salt, Fat with a Prologue and an Epilogue.  Anyway, I just bookmarked a page as I went along of thought provoking and downright jaw-dropping information. So I read books on my Kindle and it's kind of hard to tell you the exact page number for the book but I have a tip.  If you cut and paste some of the words that you see and want to read more on into the Amazon "Look Inside" of this book (link provided above), it will give you the page number.  I have located the Hardcover page numbers--some are guess-timations, may be the page before or after, sorry. 

Sugar
"...a second critic who posed a much bigger threat to the cereal industry---took up the cause.  His name was Jean Mayer, a Harvard professor of nutrition...was hugely influential in matters of diet, starting with poverty and hunger...which led to the introduction of food stamps and expanded school lunch programs...endeared him to the food industry...But what made Mayer an industry threat was his pioneering research on obesity, which he called a "disease of civilization." He is credited with discovering how the desire to eat is controlled by the amount of glucose in the blood and by the brain's hypothalamus, both of which in turn are greatly influenced by sugar." (p.74)

Fat
"As I spoke with scientists about the way fat behaves, I couldn't resist drawing an analogy to the realm of narcotics.  If sugar is the methamphetamine of processed food ingredients, with its high-speed, blunt assault on our brains, then fat is the opiate, a smooth operator whose effects are less obvious but no less powerful."(~p.148)

"The brain was identifying fat with incredible speed.  In his quest to learn more, Le Coutre rounded up fifty of his colleagues in industry and academia and asked him to help produce an "all known facts" compendium on fat.  Published in 2010 with 609 pages, the resulting book, Fat Detection: Taste, Texture, and Post Ingestive Effects, serves as a roadmap for companies looking to harness the power of fate in their food and drink.  "Why is fat so tasty?" Le Coutre asks in the introduction. "Why do we crave it, and what is the impact of dietary fat on health and disease?"(~p.155)

"...in versions where the fat had been tucked away, they sharply underestimated the levels of both.  Next, they dined on the foods, having been told to eat as much as they wanted.  The visible fat group got fuller faster, while the other group, downing the hidden-fat recipes, remained hungry and kept eating.  In a key---but commonly overlooked---aspect of obesity, weight gain can be caused by the slightest increases in consumption, if it continues day in and day out...The participants in the Dutch study hit the mark exactly.  When they couldn't see the fat in their foods, they ate nearly 10 percent more or about 100 extra calories." (~p.181)

Salt
"(Jeffrey C.) Bible helped kick things off with a speech that was part war stories, part pep talk.  He focused on the one thing that every one of the food managers needed to do if their products were to continue to dominate the processed food world..."The simple beauty of the Kraft General Foods challenge is that everybody eats," Bible told them. "This is part of the new job I'm especially enjoying: The potential is at once limitless and incredibly daunting..."(p.196)

"The blood gets especially besieged when processed food is ingested, flooding the system with its heavy loads of salt, sugar, and fat.  But where the links between eating and drugs gets really interesting is in the brain.  There, narcotics and food---especially food that is high in salt, sugar, and fat---act much alike.  Once ingested, they race along the same pathways, using the same neurological circuitry to reach the brain's pleasure zones, those areas that reward us with enjoyable feelings for doing the right thing by our bodies.  Or, as the case may be, for doing what the brain has been led to believe is the right thing."(~p.276)

""We offer a full portfolio of salt alternative to meet your needs, while still delivering the same great salty taste your customer's crave." As for the higher cost of potassium chloride (a salt alternative), Cargill notes that this and other costs associated with creating healthier foods can be passed on to the consumer..."(p.294)

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