How Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions
March is National Nutrition Month.
Obesity is a grave public health threat, with U.S. adult obesity rate topping 40% in 2020. Obesity is linked to chronic diseases including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and many types of cancer; and it accounts for 18% of deaths among Americans ages 40 to 85. There is no doubt that the food industry plays a role in this crisis.
In this episode, Michael Moss discusses his investigative work looking into the underbelly of the processed food industry in the context of obesity, public health, and ethics. He lays out all that the food industry is doing to exploit and deepen our addictions, and shows us why what we eat has never mattered more.
Michael is Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of #1 New York Times bestseller book Salt Sugar Fat, and his most recent book, Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions. Michael was formerly a reporter at The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University, School of Journalism.
His work has ranged widely from exposing the corporate interests in nursing homes to the Pentagon's failures in providing soldiers with armor, and now focuses on the food industry in the context of health, safety, nutrition, politics, marketing, and the power of individuals to gain control of what and how they eat.
Topics covered:
What the food industry is doing to exploit and deepen our addictions
Why we should think about junk food like cigarettes
How social conditions like poverty and racial discrimination play a role in diet and nutrition
How nutrition labels are made, and if they are accurate
Why US supermarkets went from having ~6,000 items in 1980 to ~33,000 today
Listen