MICHAEL MOSS documents data obtained from diverse sources, disciplines including historic archives, contemporary interviews and provides compelling psychological, neurological evidence the processed foods made and marketed by BIG FOOD are, can be ADDICTIVE.
APPROACHING
12TH
YOGA ANNIVERSARY
My morning and evening yoga sessions include asanas reflecting whole body mobility - at times movements enhanced by using a yoga block as in the SITTING FORWARD LEG EXTENSION shown above.
This asana demonstrates lengthening of muscles, connective tissues and mobile joints from feet through pelvic and shoulder girdles to hands - all signs my recovery from soft tissue trauma continues.
Looking forward to my scheduled massage with Ray Hoyt on October 21st - an opportunity to focus on rotator cuff muscles contributing to my right upper arm referred pain, other areas.
OUR
COMPROMISED
NUTRITION
PROCESSED FOODS MADE ADDICTIVE
BY
BIG FOODS
Last month I wrote about experiencing hyperlipidemia, my diagnosis of a high coronary risk from atherosclerosis based on computerized tomography imaging of calcium within plaque in four heart arteries resulting in a high total calcium score.
This status reflects on my nutrition choices over 70 years - especially on those that became poor habits during my first two decades and extending until my 50th year, less so afterwards.
WHAT IF?
Would different nutrition decisions have been made as an adolescent with knowledge known today?
Our understanding about nutrition, health risk factors from consuming highly processed foods - admittedly still incomplete - are today better that during the 1950's and 1960's.
A significant advance in our understanding about the diverse foods we eat from BIG FOOD is the consequence of two books by Michael Moss: in 2013 (Salt Sugar Fat), in 2021 (HOOKED).
It his 2021 publication on addictive processed foods that I focus on in this post - highlighting the many contributions of individuals from different disciplines that significantly enhanced our understanding connecting processed foods and our biology to the observed addiction that occurs in many.
MICHAEL MOSS
The author was a former employee of the New York Times, recipient of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting.
SALT SUGAR FAT
Processed foods prepared by BIG FOOD were intentionally formulated to achieve a "bliss point" in the pleasure centers of the brain.
Moss did not consider these processed foods addictive when he published this book.
"I came to the question of food and addiction inadvertently with the 2013 publication of my book Salt Sugar Fat." (xxii)
MOSS:
- "I argued that grocery manufactures were competing with fast-food chains in a race to the bottom that rewarded profits over health." (p. xxii)
- "Knowing all the companies did to prop up their unwholesome products, I argued, was oddly empowering."
- "We could use that insight to make better choices because, ultimately, we were the ones deciding what to buy and how much to eat."
HOWEVER
Moss acknowledges "My optimism was challenged when reporters asked, "But aren't these products addictive, like drugs.?" (p. xxiii)
HOOKED
FOOD, FREE WILL, AND HOW THE FOOD GIANTS EXPLOIT OUR ADDICTIONS
"If food was addictive like cocaine and heroin, or even like cigarettes and gin, that would certainly inhibit our ability to decide what to buy and how much to eat." (p. xxiii)
WHY BOOK WAS WRITTEN
FROM PROLOGUE
" ... the aim is to lay out all that the companies have done to exploit our addiction to food so that we might reverse engineer our dependence."
Moss writes "... the initial imperative for this book:
(1) to sort out and size up the true peril in food
(2) to see if addiction is the best way to think about our trouble with food and eating, given what we've learned from other substances and habits
(3) And to peer inside the processed food industry to see how it is dealing with what, in its view, would be a monumental threat to the power it holds over us" (p. xxiii)
BOOK ORGANIZATION
Expanding on the narrative established in the PROLOGUE (pp. xi - xxviii), Moss organized his book into two parts:
Inside Addiction (pp. 3 - 99) "examines a wealth of surprising evidence that food, in some ways, can be even more addictive than alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs." - in chapters one to four.
AND
Outside Addiction (pp. 103 -210) considers the processed food industry - "... the industry has moved to deny, delay, and, most recently, turn this concern to its advantage." - in chapters five to eight.
ALSO
With an EPILOGUE (pp. 211 - 214) and ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (pp. 215 -218), Moss provides useful NOTES (pp. 219 - 256), a valued BIBLIOGRAPHY (pp. 257 - 260) and an effective INDEX (pp. 261 - 274) - all of which enhanced my appreciation, interest in pursuing further and in more detail the diverse topics discussed.
HIGLY RECOMMEND
BOOK TO OTHERS
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
Moss interviewed individuals from many disciplines, with diverse specialties at institutions located domestically and internationally including:
- BIG FOOD: including Executives, Food Science & Research, Marketing, Public Relations, Legal Departments
- PSYCHOLOGY: using human subjects in diverse experiments
- NEUROSCIENCE: using animal models, human volunteers
Moss cites having access "to the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents archive (formerly known as the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library).' [University of California, San Francisco] (p. 217)
SELF-CRITICISM
"Where I've failed to restrain myself in drawing inferences from the science of food and addiction, I'd urge you to throw heaps of salt my way."
'What we think is true today may be shown to be bunk tomorrow." (p. 217)
MOSS ACKNOWLEDGES
" ... ideally I would not have included anything in this book that wasn't randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, and replicated to name only some of the gold standards in research trials.
" I certainly intended to avoid studies that investigated only mice, since they may or may not reflect what happens in humans. But who could pass up those white laboratory rats who smiled when they got sugar?" (p. 217)
IDENTIFYING
BIG FOOD
" ... the large food companies and legacy brands on which millions of consumers have relied on for so long." (p. 5)
They are a diverse group of national, international companies with vast financial resources producing the processed foods (solid, liquid) we consume as a nation.
They employ specialists focused on activities including food research, manufacturing and marketing, branding capabilities.
All have well funded legal departments, devoting resources to public relations, lobbying, litigation.
________
The author makes reference to the following companies, listed alphabetically:
Budweiser, Campbell Soup Company, Coca-Cola, D-Zerta, Frito-Lay, General Foods, General Mills, Heinz, Hershey, Kellogg's Company, Kraft (Kraft Heinz), Kroger, MacDonald's, Mars, Nabisco, Nestle, PepsiCo, Philip Morris, Pillsbury, R. J. Reynolds, Unilever
BIG TOBBACO ACQUIRES BIG FOOD
At one time Philip Morris acquired Kraft and General Foods and other companies; R. J. Reynolds owned the cookie and cracker giant Nabisco.
BIG FOOD MERGERS
Kraft with Heinz in 2015
"I Had a Food Affair"
[PROLOGUE]
ONE STORY SHARED BY MANY
JAZLYN BRADLEY
The author used the words "I Had a Food Affair" as the PROLOGUE title - an apt phrase to describe the compelling narrative shared about Jazlyn Bradley.
Bradley's challenges with the processed foods sold at McDonald's from childhood into adolescence are documented to highlight the addictive nature of this source of nutrition, reaching a weight of 250 pounds at sixteen.
Moss describes events leading to her becoming a plaintiff in 2002 - using this case to identify the considerable legal obstacles in Court confronting attorneys and clients claiming injury to their health from consuming BIG FOOD products.
_____
NOTE
Moss puts this case in perspective, mentions the 2001 publication of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal.
_____
"Bradley was the first to allege that the cravings we get for the processed food industry's goods are due to the nature of the ingredients and formulations used in their manufacture, and the companies are complicit in this." (p. 136)
While BIG FOOD prevailed in this lawsuit, attorney Samuel Hirsch and Judge Robert Sweet's opinion got their attention -the industry knew it would have to respond to public scrutiny for its processed products moving forward (see Chapters 5-8 ).
"What's Your Definition"
[CHAPTER ONE]
ADDICTION DEFINATION EVOLVES
The author notes the term addiction was defined and understood differently from the Romans to the 20th Century; he makes reference to the Oxford English Dictionary entries and how the word was used as a noun and verb over time.
Moss writes: "as with smoking, alcohol for longest time didn't qualify as a addiction" into the early 1800's.
However, " the temperance and anti-opium movements adopted the concept of addiction in describing the evils of drinking and opium smoking."
He cites the catchphrase in an 1891 publication of the temperance league: "Narcotic - Addictive - Opium - Alcohol -Cocaine." (p. 11)
_____
DURING THE PAST 70 YEARS
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
The author notes in 1957 the WHO sought to distinguish between addiction and habit, using word dependency.
SHATTERING STEREOTYPES
Moss mentions young psychiatrist Fred Glaser's tenure, experiences at the U. S. NARCOTICS FARM starting in the 1960's - a facility focused on heroin addiction - functioning as part hospital, prison and research institution.
What Glaser saw was a revelation: his patients "defied the government's one-size-fits all portrayal of drug users."
Glaser noted a wide spectrum of responses to drugs, the lack of painful withdrawals by many individuals incarcerated in this facility - including the poor, undereducated to the 20% who were a "banker, lawyer, minister" as well as "doctors or nurses".
He noted how some began using drugs for pain (physical, emotional) issues, being prescribed by a physician, and how some could moderate their use, recover easily relative to others and avoid "the body-wrenching havoc."
______
SLOWLY CHANGING
PERSPECTIVES ON CIGARETTES, FOOD
"for a substance to be considered addictive it no longer had to wreck the lives of every user. It was enough that only some people got badly hooked." (p. 9)
[1]
Moss shares a 1988 Louis Harris poll of the public - to name the substances or activities they felt were addictive, and to rate them on a 1 to 10 scale, 10 being the maximum loss of control.
The results: "Smoking was given an 8.5, nearly on par with heroin. But overeating, at 7.3, was not far behind, scoring higher than beer, tranquilizers, and sleeping pills." (p.5)
[2]
Moss notes in 1994 "the Food and Drug Administration's drug abuse advisory committee considered adding cigarettes to its list of addictive substances."
However, this was met with resistance by Philip Morris and testimony from a psychiatrist: "Cigarettes lie somewhere between high cholesterol foods such as eggs, on the one hand, and heroin, on the other, and they are much, much closer to steak and eggs."
HOWEVER
"But once the idea took hold that cigarettes could defeat the most dogged efforts to quit smoking, juries began to believe that smoking could also be addictive and this effectively turned them against tobacco manufactures."
"Addiction meant that smokers could not be entirely blamed when they got lung cancer. The companies deserved to be held liable too."
_____
BIG TOBACCO SUED
Moss notes it was "the 1998 settlement that forced the tobacco companies to curtail their marketing practices and pay in excess of $200 billion to the states" - largely due to individuals at the law school at Northeastern University in Boston.
Faculty and students over fourteen years collected the data: "They compiled the research that linked smoking to lung disease ... and cajoled the state attorneys general into bringing the cases that led to the big settlement." (p. 140)
ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT
TURNING POINT ABOUT ADDICTION
Steve Parrish, as General Council to Philip Morris and an occasional smoker, did not consider cigarettes addictive and use was a matter of choice.
"For years (the company) "had fended off hundreds of lawsuits by arguing that smoking, however unhealthy, was an expression of free will." (p.127)
AN ADMISSION
JUNE 13, 2000
MICHAEL SZYMANCZYK
Philip Morris, Chief Executive Officer
The CEO was responding to the nations' first smokers' class action lawsuit to go to trial.
Asked to define addiction in court:" My definition of addiction is a repetitive behavior that some people find difficult to quit."
Parrish had advised the company leader's to acknowledge cigarette smoking is addictive - a strategy adopted to undermine growing number of lawsuits, public concerns - as they had been planning to develop e-cigarettes.
WORLDWIDE EMAIL SENT
OCTOBER 11, 2000
Philip Morris to its 144,000 employees: "We agree with the overwhelming medical and scientific consensus that cigarette smoking is addictive." (p. 7)
MOSS ON CEO QUOTATION
"It's a behavior that's often mindless on our part, hidden from our own scrutiny, and guaranteed by its repetitiveness to get us to act again and again."
AND
"It's shaped by an array of influences, within us and without, that determine whether we'll be among those some people who get in trouble."
"It presents itself in varied ways and degrees of arduousness in being difficult to quit." (p. 27)
Moss clearly has food in mind and shares comments by Steve Parrish - the same person denying cigarettes were addictive - that was revealing:
"I'm dangerous around a bag of chips or Doritos or Oreos." "I'd avoid even opening a bag of Oreos because instead of eating one or two I would eat half the bag." (p. 6)
_____
BY 2013
AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION
Their Handbook "avoids the word addiction in favor of substance use disorder."
They list eleven criteria that are used to diagnose someone to "reflect the view that we can be troubled on a very wide spectrum, from mild to severe."
Significantly, the "symptoms that people mostly commonly associate with addiction - painful withdrawal and tolerance - are no longer necessary." (p. 17)
NOTEWORTHY
"... among experts, the appraisal of addiction was changing."
&
"Medical, health and research groups were all moving toward a much more inclusive characterization."
"Addiction is a spectrum." (p. xxix)
______
Considering food as an addiction was gaining support with the public and from research investigations.
EXPLORING
BRAIN AREAS
ASSOCIATED WITH
ADDICTION
[CHAPTER ONE]
Moss changed his views about processed foods being addictive based, in part, on the data obtained from PSYCHOLOGICAL and number of NEUROSCIENCE investigations using real-time brain imaging.
TWO SEMINAL, MAJOR ADVANCES
[1]
PSYCHOLOGY
ASHLEY GEARHARDT
THE YALE FOOD ADDICTION SCALE
" ... its thirty-five questions help us define what it means to struggle with food." (p. 22)
Moss acknowledges the limitations of individuals responding to questions: " ... "- there comes a point when merely asking people questions becomes less fruitful." (p. 22)
[2]
NEUROSCIENCE
NORA VOLKOW
REAL-TIME IMAGING
Moss cites the research done at the Brookhaven National Laboratory led by Volkow, a known authority of drug addiction, and colleague Joanna Fowler using a device nicknamed the Headshrinker: their CT1931 machine used "nuclear traces" and capable of "tracking the brain's ... neurons, as they fired away." - like the MRI scanner (p.23)
IMPORTANT OBSERVATIONS
(1) In some experiments applying foods to tongues, taking images: " ... getting a bit of their taste on the tongue was sufficient to light up a part of the brain that scientists associated with the feeling of pleasure." (p. 25)
(2) "Images produced by food trials: "They were hardly distinguishable from those of the brain on cocaine."
_____
SIGNIFICANCE
[1]
"The ability of a substance to excite the brain and set in motion the behavior that leads us to act compulsively is in large part a matter of how fast the substance reaches the brain. (p. 47)
"The smoke from cigarettes takes ten seconds to stir the brain, but a touch of sugar on the tongue will do so in a little more than half a second, or six hundred milliseconds to be precise."
"Salt and fat clock in at roughly the same speed." (p. 47)
AND
[2]
Moss notes "of all the substances that can get us hooked, nothing is faster than when it comes to certain types of food stirring up the brain." (p. 47)
A CONFIRMATION
Moss found the words of the Philip Morris CEO said in reference to smoking could be applied to processed foods.
"Where Does It Begin"
[CHAPTER TWO]
OUR BRAIN - SENSES - FOOD CONNECTION
QUOTE
" ... nothing in eating makes sense except in the light of evolution."
Moss wrote this above quote - modifying the words of evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky - exchanging biology for food.
The author cites investigations by Ray Wise and Kent Berridge contributing to our understanding of roles of brain in relation to food.
BASIC RESEARCH USING RATS
RAY WISE
Observations in from experiments over many years exposing rats to electrical stimulation led him to conclude:
(1) "appetite lived in the brain, not the stomach." (p. 35)
(2) "it occupied a space in the brain very close to another spot that could send forth the complete opposite sensation: that of being full."
(3) The neurotransmitter dopamine was important - describing the state of being that dopamine puts us in using the words 'pleasure, euphoria, yumminess" (p. 38)
KENT BERRIDGE
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
His lab rats "wear their emotions on their snouts." His 2000 paper photos showed similar reactions to foods between babies and rats." ... "Rat and baby alike scowled when they got something bitter and beamed when they got sweets." (p. 39)
In experiments blocking dopamine actions on brain - he noticed "the rats stilled smiled when they got sugar."
DISTINGUISHING
BRAIN
LIKING VS. WANTING
Berridge concludes: there are "homemade chemicals making us feel good ... is one or more of the brain opioids."
(1) He notes "liking something is a critical part of motivation" and "before there can be liking, something must cause us to act."
AND
(2) 'The emotion that propels this act is desire", " And the brain chemical behind this emotion? Dopamine."
Moss also cites the three individuals awarded the 2017 Brain Prize noting their research "showed the brain generates dopamine ... in response to the difference between the pleasure we expect to get and the pleasure we actually get."
_____
Moss keeps it basic in mentioning some named brain regions relevant to the foods we consume, addictions from processed foods.
The author notes the responses observed in each to foods: referred to as 'go' and 'stop' areas of brain that "are difficult to map with precision."
OUR BRAIN
[1]
HYPOTHALMUS
This region "is best described as the control room. It acts like a regulator gathering updates on matters like the body's temperature, blood pressure, and calories consumed, and it makes the necessary adjustments to keep the body on a steady keel." (p.37)
"It guides the behaviors that are most essential to our survival: the four F's - fighting, fleeing, fornicating, and feeling."
RAY WISE
Wise figured out neurons " ... pass data between themselves through both electrical and chemical signals, including one called dopamine." (a neurotransmitter)
"The four F's of the hypothalamus are a manifestation of of dopamine; the degree to which they get our attention is a matter of how much dopamine is put into circulation by the brain." (p.38)
[2]
HIPPOCAMPUS
Composed of a seahorse-shaped cluster of neurons, this region is part of the 'stop' brain
Moss notes "slowing down and chewing food slowly allows the hippocampus to absorb the information from that eating experience and to learn." (p. 63)
- "when we eat with purpose and and deliberation, its engaged.
[It helps keep the 'go' brain from getting us into trouble]
[3]
ORBITOFRONTAL CORTEX
These neurons located above our eyes "is part of a larger expanse of the brain known as the frontal lobe" also involved in the 'stop" brain.
Moss recounts the story of Phineas Gage, the injury that eliminated his ability to engage this region of the brain.
[4]
STRIATUM
In this area "we are reacting to inducements ... without applying the kind of oversight that can put the brakes on a bad decision."
"When we file information away in the striatum, "do things by rote, it creates what scientists have dubbed habit memory." (p.64)
ADDITIONAL EVIDENCE
OF
BRAIN ADDICTION
DANA SMALL
'GO' BRAIN TO 'STOP' BRAIN
IMAGING EXPERIMENT
Using real-time documentation, Small found subjects exposed to chocolate underwent a reaction from delicious to awful - obtaining from subject reactions to prolonged stimulus exposure.
SIGNIFICANCE
Moss notes "This was the first glimpse of a human brain throwing its own switch in response to the neurological signals caused by foods." (p. 45) - that is from the go to stop mode.
ANOTHER IMPORTANT FINDING
Small observed "only those snacks that had sugar and fat had enough arousal in them to fire up the striatum. where habit memory lives."
"It's here ... where restraint and free will disappear, indicating that sugar and fat, together, are extremely difficult to exert control over.
" When our behavior gets repetitive, this pair is the hardest to quit."
AND
OUR SENSES
MOSS
"we eat like we do today because of dramatic changes to our nose, our gut, and our body fat that caused them to become full partners with the brain in driving our habits."
TONGUE
[1]
SALT, SUGAR
Our tongue has "ten thousand taste buds" (p. 84); these "taste buds have a mechanism" that detects sugar, salt that are "converted into an electrical signal that then races to the brain." (p. 49) (in milliseconds)
" This is the mechanism that makes food faster than drugs in exciting the brain ..." (p. 205)
ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS
"What if (BIG FOOD) could find a way to trick those taste buds into thinking there was more sugar hitting the tongue than there really was?" (p. 205)
Moss tells us investigators have recently learned that the "cells on our tongue absorb sugar themselves, drawing it right through their cell walls, which raises the specter that they are part of the mechanism that informs the brain of the fuel (calories) in our food." (p. 208)
[2]
FAT
The "signal for fat gets transmitted by the trigeminal nerve that extends from the roof of the mouth to the brain." (p.62)
&
NOTE COMBINATION
FAT & SUGAR
"Foods that has both fat and sugar will activate these two paths, sending two separate alerts, and thus doubling the arousal of a brain that appears to place a high value of information for information's sake. (p.62)
MOSS NOTES
"But fat and sugar are rarely found together in nature. Even breast milk is, on average, just 3.5 percent fat and 7 percent sugar."
YET
"The typical processed snack food has close to 24 percent fat and 57% sugar." (p. 62)
_____________
FOOD SCIENTISTS ALSO DISCOVERED
[1]
DYNAMIC CONTRAST
"We get excited not only by tasting food, but by feeling it, too, and one of the greatest sensations is a mix of textures ..." (p.62)
[Moss provides examples: Peanut M&M's have a brittle exterior, a soft interior, with a crunchy peanut inside that. Oreo cookies have light and dark, sweet and salty (in the cookie), smooth and rough."]
&
[2]
DETECTING SMELL IN FOODS
"WE SMELL WITH OUR MOUTH"
Moss notes a recent discovery by investigators: "we have ten million receptors in our nose for smell ... "these smell receptors can pick up between 340 and 380 basic smells, with combinations that reach into the thousands." (p. 84)
We are informed these "millions of smell receptors are located at the roof of the nasal cavity, in a bump called the olfactory bulb."
Moss notes the pathway these smell molecules (volatiles) follow were investigated by Yale neurobiologist Gordon Shepard and engineers in 2015.
"Through modeling ... they have shown that in the air in this space behind our nose has circular movements, like eddies in a stream, which cycle the small molecules around and around, ... getting us excited about food." (p. 85)
FLAVOR
Moss writes " ... the cells on the tongue also appear to be picking up small molecules - the aroma in our food that the brain converts to flavor, which is another of the huge drivers of our eating habits." (p. 208)
" The brain creates flavor ... by weaving together the sensory inputs and its memory of smells and tastes and feelings past." (p. 87)
ALSO
OUR GUT
Evidence exists "The gut becomes our main way of counting calories."
Moss mentions experiments using the artificial sweetener maltodextrin: "it has the chemical structure of a sugar and yet doesn't taste sweet" but it "has as many calories as any other sugar." (p. 93)
"The stomach is sensing the calories and signaling the brain that this is something good to drink, and the brain in turn is dispatching the feeling of pleasure and reward to get us to drink more." (p. 93)
Moss notes "just how the gut communicates with the brain remains a mystery." - that is, our understanding remains incomplete.
We know:
> The stomach has taste receptors
> There is an extensive microflora (our microbiome)
[this word microbiome was not used by author, not cited in the INDEX]
Our microbiome is comprised of vast numbers of Bacteria , Fungi, Archaea known to have an epigenetic effect on humans: that is, their genomes make products that impact our DNA, that influence our gut, brain in ways currently largely unappreciated.
Google The Human Microbiome Project for an updated status of ongoing research.
PROCESSED FOODS
NEGATIVE
HEALTH CONSEQUENCES
TWO MEDIUM SAGITTAL BODY SECTIONS
CUT ALONG THE LONG AXIS OF SPINAL CHORD
Note excessive distribution of body fat in the right individual compared to the left one - image taken at a BODY WORKS exhibit in Faneuil Hall in Boston.
MOSS
"the hallmarks of processed food - the lowest prices and the greatest convenience" (p. xxiii)
"The past four decades have seen soaring numbers of people put on so much weight that it compromises their health and well-being."
DEFINING
OBESITY
" ... as thirty-five or more excess pounds for a person of average height, obesity began to surge - the late 1970's - climbing from 15 percent to 40 percent." (p. 28)
"The latest figures mean that 96 million American adults are obese today, with nearly as many people classified as merely overweight ... ."
_____
" ... The U. S. Surgeon general has estimated that obesity causes three hundred thousand premature deaths every year, with annual healthcare costs that now top $300 billion."
AND
"Globally, we're at 650 million, not counting the 1.2 billion others who are overweight."
_______
BIOLOGY OF FAT
SYLVIA TARA
A biochemist who considers "The fat in our body is a full-fled organ, like the heart and kidney ..." (p. 97)
When talking about fat "we're often referring to the cells that share fat itself. But together those fat cells form a structure, with connective tissue, nerve tissue, and immune cells that all work as a unit, part of the very sophisticated endocrine system."
'The chemicals produced by fat include the hormone leptin, which can cause you to lose your desire to eat."
"Yet (fat) works just as efficiently to thwart any intentional effort to lose weight."
THE SET POINT
Moss makes reference to this metabolic theory "which posits that the body finds a comfortable weight from which it refuses to budge for very long."
EDWARD MASON
MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS
Moss mentions the first surgeries of Dr. Mason in 1967 were done, "using surgical techniques developed to fix severe ulcers, this procedure sealed the stomach off so much food went straight from the esophagus to the intestines." (p. 29)
&
Liposuction is not a long term solution to remove excess fat.
IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER
Our understanding of how are foods are metabolized still remains incomplete - meaningful data from well designed nutrition science studies like those of Kevin Hall and his colleagues (Chapter 6) are required to obtain answers to many as yet unresolved nutrition, metabolism questions.
"It's All Related To Memories"
[CHAPTER THREE]
PAULA WOLFERT
FOOD WRITER, COOK
Moss describes how this talented and active individual at 74 who tapped her "exceptional powers of taste and smell" to prepare Mediterranean dishes became victim to Alzheimer's, attacking her memory. (p. 56)
She lost "recall for language", "sense of smell failed her", "plundered her capacity to taste."
Wolpert tells Moss: "I've forgotten how to taste most everything. And when you cook, remembering is what it's all about. It's all related to memory."
POWER OF FOOD MEMORIES
Moss writes "memory lives throughout our brain, inserting itself into every aspect of our being." (p.57)
He notes "There are as many as 100 billion nerve cells in the brain. Each of these individual cells can form thousands of connections to other neurons through gaps called synapses, across which information travels."
______
DOCUMENTING MEMORIES
[1]
CARRIE FERRARIO
Moss mentions this neuroscientist at the University of Michigan who "likes to think of memory as streambeds in the brain that change over time in response to the information that rains down on us."
"The ones that have more water flowing through them become deeper and better established, making it more likely that water will flow down the path in the future."
"It's in this constant flux that new memories are established, existing ones lost, and others gain strength ... ."
[2]
KATHYRN LaTOUR
Moss includes this researcher associated with the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration - using the "famous fast-food icon" CoCa-Cola to have Alabama university students take a "memory walk."
The stories they told from their childhoods were strong, positive - evidence, as Moss writes, of "Coke's superpowers in creating memory."
[3]
ERIC STICE
BEHAVORIAL SCIENTIST
Moss describes how Stice at the Oregon Research Institute used an fMRI machine to scan the brains of 15 year old participants - one group had consumed coke, the other did not.
He noted for those who drank coke: "the logo alone was enough to light up parts of their brain associated with desire."
"When the coke drinkers looked at the logo, the "stop" parts of their brain appeared to be dormant, indicating they were less inclined to think about the health consequences of drinking a coke and therefore put on the brake." (p. 68)
[4]
TRAUMA AND FOOD ADDICTION
Moss shares conversations with Steve Comess who ran a medical agency - that memories associated with trauma can lead to "disordered eating."
George Koob from the National Institutes of Health- as director of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism said - "PTSD and addiction also overlap in the way they play out in the brain. They both fire up the go function of the brain and suppress the stop. We eat what we remember, but also, we eat to forget."
Moss notes another aspect: "We eat to forget, then we eat for relief." in reference to some researchers who suggest alcohol or food may be sought "to replace those hormones (including endorphins) and experience anew the comforting feeling they generate."
_____
TOOLS TO ESTABLISH MEMORIES,
ATTRACT CONSUMERS TO PRODUCTS
Moss mentions the Advertising Research Foundation, executive Horst Stipp using electroencephalogram (EEG) to pinpoint moment when our emotions make us vulnerable to persuasion and branding and "the fMRI brain scanner to unlock the secrets of cravings and compulsive behavior, for the advantage of advertisers, ... ."
Moss introduces a marketing luminary Pranav Yadav of Neuro-Insight - an enterprise designed to find the optimal time to establish memories so that the message worked to the advertiser's advantage - using EEG-like device to monitor individuals brains while watching a commercial.
_______
We are reminded of the heyday of broadcast television and the number of hours of TV watched by children 2-11, 3 hours 11' /day, 23 ads for food high on sugar and fat.
Now children are exposed via other media including advertising on Facebook.
Moss notes "We're so easily manipulated by advertising when it comes to marketing food, the messages don't even have to be truthful to shape our memory" and again mentions research by Kathryn LaTour providing examples.
NOTE
A new line of research aimed at disrupting how and what we remember - Moss mentions two methods: (1) memory extinction and (2) reconsolidation (p. 76)
Moss shares his own brain scan experiences in the lab of Eric Stice in Oregon: he writes "See the milkshake (meh), my brain said. Taste it, a wow. See it (meh.)" and reminding him of Roy Wise's rats who flipped back and forth between being fill and famished with those twenty-second nips of electricity to their hypothalamus."
Stice and his colleague Sonja Yokum tracked participants over time (several years) exposed to a photo of a milkshake, and later got to taste the milkshake. Over time, those individuals who put on weight responded to the photo by wanting the milkshake more than they previously had.
Their study was published in 2016 - Moss writes: "this work has huge implications for food and free will. As we put on weight, we won't like that pint of ice cream or bag of French fries any more than we did before. But we'll be more apt to grab to eat it, since we'll want it more, having remembered our past indulgences." (p. 78)
"We by Nature Are Drawn To Eating"
[CHAPTER FOUR]
ARDI
*Ardipithecus ramidus
*in Afar language of Ethiopia means "floor and root"
LINKING
POSSIBLE
PAST TO PRESENT
Moss introduces readers to Ardi - citing articles published in SCIENCE in 2009 - as a means to speculate on various evolutionary processes giving rise to the anatomical changes required to access, acquire and process food sources.
Classified as a new species, Ardi - her skeleton was found in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia in 1994 - was 4.4 million years old.
Moss mentions Charles Darwin "had correctly guessed that Africa would prove to be the cradle of humankind."
Moss notes based on foot and pelvic anatomical findings: "Ardi was able to come down from the trees, stand upright on her legs, and stride off through the forest like a human (albeit with a fair bit of tottering."
______
SPECULATIONS
How did we evolve, establish our relationship with food from the time of Ardi?
Moss talks about the different anatomical changes that likely occurred between our brain and senses in relation to food in this chapter - I have shared most of these comments in sections in chapter two.
Moss notes "... for the first four million years of our existence, it was our addiction to food that enabled us to thrive as a species." (p. xxv)
"Our entire body-form - from nose to the gut to our body fat - is designed to get us not just to like food but to want more and more of it, which we are learning from the fossilized bones of our prehistoric forebears." (p. xxv)
"It's only now, for the past forty years, that being hooked on food is causing us so much harm." (p. xxv)
"WHAT HAPPENED?
THE FOOD IS WHAT HAPPENED."
Moss addresses the Ardi in us that has lost control over our eating habits because of BIG FOOD.
"THE VARIETY SEEKERS"
[CHAPTER 5]
EVOLUTIONAY BIOLOGIST
QUOTE
"It's not so much that food is addictive, but rather that we are by nature drawn to food, and the companies changed the food." (p. xxv)
________
Moss introduces the Big Food flavor houses with their gas chromatographs to obtain chemical structure information and focused efforts attempting to match those with natural foods substances - taking advantage of staff employees with enhanced sense of smell.
He notes their research activities, resulting products are not subject to extensive disclosure requirements by government agencies - these additives are "lumped under category of 'natural and artificial flavors'".
BIG FOOD "finds ways to mimic the iconic brand's flavor while using cheaper ingredients - Moss use the example of vanilla beans cost ($272 a pound) vs. vanillin ($7.00 a pound), a factor attractive to consumers.
QUOTE
Charles Mortimer
The CEO of General Foods in 1955:
"Convenience is the great additive which must be designed, built in, combine, blended, interwoven, injected, inserted, or otherwise added to or incorporated in products or services if they are to satisfy today's demanding public."
BIG FOOD manufactured products that "maximized speed" according to Moss.
The author makes reference to what the food technicians called the "bliss point" for sugar as well as for salt and fat - the amount that would cause the go part of our brain to get so aroused that the brake in our brain had no chance to say no."
Moss writes: "We turned over our saltshakers to the companies, along with our sugar bowl, and our dish of olive oil for dipping bread, and with that, our food traditions became their eating habits."
ALSO
During the early 1980"s snacking became a "fourth meal, citing on average 580 calories per person."
Industry research led to the development of product variations they knew would keep their customers to continue eating: "The supermarkets went from having six thousand items in 1980 to twelve thousand in 1990 to an average of thirty-three thousand items today."
Their Variety Research Program identified different consumer groups, the emergence of individualized manufacturing in the 1990's.
QUOTE
Moss cites researcher Suzanne Higgs in 2014 "variety was one of the things that will cause us to lose track of what we eat ... that go far in subverting our free will."
He tells us "The number of fast food restaurants has grown to 340,000 outlets" and "Three fourths of groceries we buy, as measured in categories, are now processed" with most of this classified as highly processed food. (p.118)
EXAMPLES
OF
VARIETY OF PROCESSED PRODUCTS
BIG FOOD was focused on expanding the diversity of both solid and liquid inventory.
Some popular products are listed below:
- Cereals: Big 'N Crusty, Cotton Candy Crunch, Cheerios - of the 200 kinds to choose from
- Cheese: low-fat, macaroni and cheese, processed, Velveeta Light, Kraft Free, Cheese Soup
- Chips of various flavors: BBQ, sour cream and onion, cheddar and sour cream, spicy jalapeno, crab, sea salt and pepper, loaded baked potato, and bacon
- Cookies: Oreos (Big Stuf, Double Stuf, Doy Pak, Mini)
- Fast Foods: Big Macs, Chicken McNuggets, Happy Meal,
- Frozen Foods: Chicken potpies, Healthy Choice
- Ice Cream: Banana Peanut Butter Chip Haagen-Dazs, Brown Butter Bourbon Truffles
- Potatoes: Ore-Ida, Tater Tots, McDonald's French fries
- Snacks: Cheez-IT's, chocolate, Doritos, potato chips, Kit Kat, M&M's
- Sweeteners: aspartame, beet sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, maltodextrin, natural vanilla, saccharine, Splenda, sucralose, sugarcane
______
Moss notes the successful efforts of BIG FOOD with the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to control much of what appears on nutrition labels.
CORPORATE OVER PUBLIC INTERESTS
QUOTE
Moss cites comments in 1990 by Frito-Lay to the FDA: the company "has a demonstrated record of sensitivity to the needs and concerns of its consumers and has a direct interest in, and responsibility for, the nutritional interests and needs of consumers."
"We support a policy of providing sound nutrition information to the American people."
Unfortunately, this was not reality.
PUBLIC INTERESTS POORLY SERVED
" ... the FDA agreed to stop making food manufactures put the word imitation on the package fronts, which had been a real threat to sales." (p. 121)
(BIG FOOD) "got to leave lots of things out of disclosure:
1 - "... the chemical compounds it uses in flavorings." - Moss citing the example of simulated pumpkin spice including cyclotenes, lactones, sulfurol, pyrazines, and vanillin - as many as "eighty elements".
2 - multitude of substances that are used mainly as aids in the process of making foods and show up in the final product either not at all or in minute quantities." - for example: genetically modified organisms (GMOs) altered corn and soybeans
3 - misleading serving sizes, words used on nutrition labels
Moss cites Gyorgy Scrinis, his writings about nutritionism - critical of those paying too much attention to the nutrition in processed food, "which and how much of their nutrients are deemed "good" or "bad".
Moss ends this chapter by noting the BIG FOOD perspective: "they argue they didn't invent the attributes that make their products so addictive, as much as they simply gave us what we innately want."
*"She Is Dangerous"
[CHAPTER SIX]
*Quote attributed to John Fletcher, a PepsiCo in charge of nutrition, about Dana Small - who had her funding withdrawn due to brain scan data, interpretations
Moss writes "The processed food industry's shrewdness in mining our biology and our emotions enabled it to foresee and take charge of our eating habits." (p. 127)
PUBLIC CONCERNS OVER FOOD
Moss notes the admission by BIG TOBACCO that smoking was indeed addictive "cast a new height on the threat facing the rest of the company's products" - "which was processed foods."
&
The tobacco executives had been warning the food-side managers that they could face as much trouble over obesity as tobacco did with cancer."
STEVEN JOSEPH, TRANS FATS
Moss tells the story of attorney Stephen Joseph suing Kraft over just one ingredient: an additive called trans fat (= trans unsaturated fatty acids) created by a process that infuses oil with hydrogen to solidify it that was unhealthy.
Joseph indicated BIG FOOD was targeting our children - being "Added to cookies, crackers, cakes, biscuits, popcorn, doughnuts, breakfast sandwich, frozen pizza and fried fast food."
He asked to ban sales of Oreos, originally developed by Nabisco, in all its forms and eventually dropped the lawsuit when Kraft agreed to remove trans fats from all its products.
_____
AGGRESSIVE MARKETING
Moss notes that Big Food was 'working to hit optimum bliss point for sweetness, the mouthfeel for fat, and the flavor boost of salt." - they were interested in getting the attention of tweens when they were young.
Marketing was expanding: Moss noted Kraft Senior VP lawyer Michael Mudd, reviewing company design and marketing records, saw in Mini Oreos "so much convenience that they could lead to what psychologists called mindless eating and its loss of control."
Mudd was focused on anything "that could cause trouble for Kraft in the court of public opinion."
SUCH AS
SUPER SIZE ME
Moss mentions Morgan Spurlock's 2004 movie - the filmmaker eating three meals a day for 30 days at McDonalds resulting in negative health outcomes was not the message BIG FOOD wanted to convey to the public. (p. 139)
BIG FOOD took actions to expand its influence.
[1]
CURTAILING LAWSUITS
Moss describes how BIG FOOD, the Law and Obesity Project by Richard Daynard led efforts to lobby Congress to block obesity lawsuits but was not successful.
However, Moss describes The National Restaurant Association attention that was directed to states, lobbying for legislation to prevent lawsuits to protect processed foods and having success in Colorado.
Moss cited 26 states voted versions of the Commonsense Consumption Act into law giving Big Food immunity.
[2]
BIG FOOD CONTROLS RESEARCH
Despite this progress, BIG FOOD remained concerned with providing data from studies it funded to persuade consumers to continue to consume its processed foods.
This BIG FOOD company research literature was evaluated by Marion Nestle and found deficient.
Moss highlights the circumstances leading to one notable Big Bet initiative using PepsiCo money: initially funding Dana Small, an independent investigator, using fMRI brain imaging to investigate sugar but was later suspended.
OUESTION ADDRESSED:
"How many calories could it take out of its products in making them healthier without diminishing their appeal so much that we wouldn't want them?"
SIGNIFICANT OBSERVATIONS
Dana Small unexpectedly found participants exposed to sugar drinks of different calories but similar sweetness:
(1) they liked the 112.5 calorie drink more than the 150 calorie or other drink options (75, 37.5, no calories)
HOWEVER
(2) in giving participants three choices of salads treated with maltodextrin to obtain different calories consumed, they liked the salad with with most calories (150 vs. 112.5 or 37.5).
Small was curious: where the 37.5 calories go? She speculated the body processed solids vs. liquids differently - from an evolutionary perspective, perhaps our bodies are not well prepared to deal with high-calorie liquids. (p. 156)
You would be tricked by soda into thinking you were burning calories you weren't. Calories would be converted to fat and you would gain weight.
Moss writes:
"...the company's own brain scans were showing that we were even more drawn to - and probably addicted by - the new versions of soda being made that had less sugar."
&
"Small's work suggested that their unnatural sweetness (from the added non-calorie sweeteners) was so confusing and mismatched with our biology that they might cause us to put on more body fat or develop conditions like type 2 diabetes."
With these concerns about public reaction to this information, PepsiCo decided to discontinue funding Dana Small.
Small noted:
"It's not so much that people can become addicted to food. It's the food has changed, and its now mismatched to us." - what she called the Mismatch Index. (p. 159)
Moss cites a research paper published in 2019 by Kevin Hall, a metabolism specialist, that "established for the first time that eating highly processed foods causes people to gain weight and isn't a mere correlation." - suggesting Dana Small might be on the "right track."
"Give Your Willpower a Boost"
[CHAPTER SEVEN]
Moss briefly mention the experiences of William Banting in 1864 and comments on the history of dieting including the introduction of the scale and diet fads like the "Master Cleanse or Lemonade Diet, the Fruitarian Diet."
He notes that despite their many incarnations, the nutrition science underlying diets is unknown - they have not been subjected to scientific evaluations.
The author cites Yoni Freedhoff, a physician and author (The Diet Fix) with a weight control clinic in Canada: his experience with patients "has taught me it is just a matter of time before you end up just giving in" acknowledging our evolution "telling you what to do ... "you may be able to beat your urges from time to time, eventually (you and I both know) they're going to win." (p. 164)
ANCEL KEYS, STARVATION EXPERIMENT
Moss reference to the Keys Starvation Experiment highlights the drive for the body to obtain food.
Moss indicates the Minnesota Starvation Experiment led by the physiologist Keys during 1944 - 1945: "Thirty-six healthy young men who were on a regime of 3,200 calories a day were taken down to 1,570 - basically, potatoes, and turnips and macaroni - for six months." (p. 165)
The physical, psychological observations recorded - how they "obsess, dream and fantasize" about food - highlights the evolution of our body's drive to obtain food, calories that Moss comments on about Ardi in various contexts.
[An interesting, alarming chapter of nutrition science history, the individuals selected for the study were all conscientious objectors opposed to fighting in WWII.]
FURTHER INFORMATION
I read the Todd Tucker (2007) University of Minnesota edition "The Great Starvation Ancel Keys and The Men Who Starved For Science" University of Minnesota Press ... the original Tucker edition was published in 2006 with the following title: The Great Starvation Experiment: The Heroic Men Who Starved So That Millions Could Live
NOTE
Keys remains a person of interest in the history of nutrition science - both praised by supporters, denounced by critics - having served in powerful leadership positions that influenced the FDA, national food policies, medical community - notably the public warnings about saturated fats but not about sugar, his promoting the benefits of the "Mediterranean Diets".
[Google Marion Nestle to see writings on Food Politics, reference to Keys and others including organizations at the highest levels impacting the nation for decades.]
ROLE
OF
BIG FOOD, DIETING
Moss: "Junk food morphed into junk diets" ... "the processed food industry has filled the grocery store with diet foods that are hardly distinguishable from the regular products that got us into trouble in the first place." (p. xxvii)
BIG FOODS ACQUIRE DIET COMPANIES
In 1978, Heinz got Weight Watchers ... In 2000, Unilever purchased Slim-Fast ... In 2006, Nestle purchased Jenny Craig ... In 2010, Roark Capital Group Atkins
Moss tells the story of how Heinz acquired Weight Watchers, writing "were Heinz to buy both the lower calories food and the program of Weight Watchers, it would own the full spectrum of eating habits." (p. 168)
Claims being made about "how much weight people actually lost" by BIG FOOD brought to the attention of The Federal Trade Commission were not effective and misrepresentation in advertising continued.
ATTEMPTS TO LOSE WEIGHT
TRACI MANN
PSYCHOLOGIST
"For the vast majority of people, dieting just doesn't work. It fails because:
(1) of our physiology; the body plays a game of sabotage by lowering or otherwise undermining our efforts."
(2) "life intervenes - layoff, or new babies, or sick parents."
(3) "no amount of will power can be sustained forever."
(4) "when that willpower is working for the dieter, the price is really high." (p. 173)
Moss cites studies that reflect "Weight Watchers produced an average loss in body weight of just over 5 percent. The news got even worse over time. At the end of two years, the participants had put on enough weight that the average net loss was barely 3 percent."
"The problem wasn't Weight Watchers. The problem was processed food, and all that the manufactures did to cause us to relinquish control of our eating habits."
"The Blueprint for Your DNA"
[CHAPTER 8]
Moss introduces Denise Morrison, President & CEO of Campbell Soup Company - providing quotations from a 2015 presentation:
"We are seeing an explosion of interest in fresh foods, dramatically increased focus by consumers on the effects of foods on their health and well-being, and mounting demands for transparency from food companies about where and how their products are made, what ingredients are in them, and how these ingredients are produced."
&
"And ... with this ... has come a mounting distrust of Big Food. Increasing numbers of of consumers are seeking authentic, genuine food experiences, and we know that they are skeptical of the ability of large, long-established food companies to deliver them."
---------------
Big FOOD was determined "to hold on to the power they had over our eating habits." ... If we were going to insist on better eating, the industry would define what is better and then own that, too."
Moss notes back in 2006 how some European Commission academics and BIG FOOD collaborated in Northern Europe toward this goal.
THE DiOGenes PROJECT
Moss describes interaction of academics with BIG FOOD and introduces the DiOGenes Project (=diet, obesity, and genes) - "in exchange for funding, any solution the academics came up with would be turned over to the companies for them to produce and sell."
HOWEVER
And, as Moss writes: "But the products will only be effective if they satisfy other consumer criteria, such as taste, cost and convenience." (p. 189)
Moss notes grocery stores in Denmark and the Netherlands were used to conduct a study to obtain information on what it means to eat better.
QUESTION CONSIDERED
"What if our addiction to bad eating habits could be cured by changing how much we got of certain nutrients?
__________
Eighty families were involved, set up in four groups evaluating protein, glycemic index (rate sugar enters bloodstream) over 26 weeks monitoring their weight - the group with higher protein, lower glycemic index did best.
Moss mentions the academics published a book Nordic Way.
This project led Big Food to add higher protein to many of their products: milk, ice cream, muffins, popcorn, Popsicles - continuing what had been done with beta-carotene, lycopene, beta-glucan - all implying a benefit - but the science was
"sketchy."
This same approach was applied to fiber of different types but BIG FOOD was required to provide research showing benefits being claimed.
FOOD-GENE RELATIONSHIP
Moss mentions various investigators, studies BIG FOOD was interested in:
(1) Bruno Estour, physician examining GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide 1) and PYY (peptide YY) hormones which function as a off switch, make us feel satiated
(2) Ernest Noble, looking at the DRD2 gene - enables dopamine to reach the brains reward center, a variant allele
(3 Jorg Hager, a molecular geneticist, evaluating the epigenetic role: "there is a world of things that can create an epigenetic effect on our genes, including the kinds and amount of food that our parents ate."
Nestle was looking at the genetic make up of the people participating in the DiOGenes project.
Moss mentions Nestle invested millions in 2016 in a stat-up called Habit "that produces an eating plan based on a person's vitals."
[The former CEO of Nestle Peter Brabeck-Letmathe was interested in personalized nutrition - he had written a book Nutrition For A Better Life and wrote "that the future of food is in personalized diets and health programs." (p. 203)]
AUTHOR RESERVATIONS
Moss writes that despite all these activities by BIG FOOD, "the companies won't solve our disordered eating."
He adds "... by all the traits we inherited from Ardi - the dual modes of smelling, our craving for fuel, and the propensity to pack that fuel as body fat - we will continue to go crazy for their products because they are loaded with the things that tap into our deepest biology of desire: salt, sugar fat and calories." (p. 204)
AND
Moss shares the words of Paul Breslin, Nutrition Professor at Rutgers interested in the biology of taste: our species is an ape which is essentially a frugivore - get 80% of calories from fruit.
_______
YET
BIG FOOD was focused to get regain the public trust - PepsiCo would reverse course and remove sugar with the goal "to win back our faith by taking some of the weaponry away while still keeping us hooked."
MOSS
"Each of us is still eating seventy-three pounds of sugar a year."
BIG FOOD acknowledged "lack of enthusiasm for fake sweeteners" - they were "drawn to the idea that they might be able to seize control of the signal for sweetness that went from our tongue to brain."
In 2010 PepsiCo contracted the biotech start-up Senomyx to develop substances that could amplify the sweetness of sugar."
[Senomyx was purchased by Firmensch - one of the largest flavor companies - in 2018]
The FDA would allow these taste enhancers to be added to foods in various amounts - from one to five parts per billion - without our knowledge and simply be listed on product labels as "natural and artificial flavors." ... Moss asks: are they safe?
Moss notes there is a lot we do not know about taste and the brain and, reflecting thoughts made by Dana Small, cites concerns of Perdue University Neuroscientist Susan Swithers:
"that drinks and food, in which non-calorie sweeteners have been mixed with sugars might pose a special problem for us in that we haven't had enough time, on an evolutionary scale to develop a way to accurately sense or otherwise deal with the mismatch between the perception of calories and those that actually arrive in our gut. This could leave our metabolism a mess." (p. 208)
FRUIT FLIES
Moss ends this chapter on a note of caution: including research using fruit flies (Drosophila) as a model organism to evaluate "fake sweeteners" by Paul Breslin, also the Australian Stephen Simpson and colleagues noting the addition of "the most popular non-calorie sweetener sucralose" to the fly food (sugar and yeast) resulted in modified behavior.
Moss writes: - "And the flies went bonkers. They couldn't sleep. Moreover, they seemed to feel they were starving, which caused them to eat more."
The flies "didn't gain weight", "The flies had become hyperactive, until the sucralose dosing was stopped, when the flies regained control of their behavior."
Moss acknowledges "There are limits to the conclusions we can reasonably draw from this study" ... but who benefits: BIG FOOD or the consumers of processed foods containing these additives?
"Changing What We Value"
[EPILOGUE]
WHAT BIG FOOD, WE KNOW
ABOUT
PRODUCTION, MARKETING
OF
PROCESSED FOODS
MOSS EPILOGUE OVERVIEW
Moss provides a useful summary of how BIG FOOD has used its resources for decades to continue to develop their unhealthy, processed foods:
[1]
" ... that speed drives the brain crazy with lust."
[2]
" ... we go loopy for salt, sugar, fat and calories."
[3]
" ... we eat what we remember ... they [BIG FOOD] go to great lengths to create our food memories and trigger them with endless cues."
[4]
" to value the cheapness and convenience of their products."
[5]
" to own the cure when our eating spins out control, and their cure is to have us diet."
[6]
" their products, like drugs, affect some of us more than others."
MOSS SUGGESTIONS
He acknowledges "wrestling free of addiction ... it's not so easy." We can:
(1) make our own meals, pay more attention to what we eat
(2) build new memories by changing what we value in food
(3) remember the hidden costs to our health of cheapness and convenience
(4) try to fix one of our bad habits at a time
(5) stop drinking anything with calories
AUTHORS FINAL WORDS
"When we change what we eat, and the companies change what they make to address that, we have to be ready to see through that."
EAT REAL FOOD,
MOSTLY PLANTS,
IN SMALL AMOUNTS
I
EAT
AND
SELECTIONS
AT THE ROSE ROOM IN
WEBSTER, MA
OWNED, OPERATED
BY
JESS & BILL SABINE
The ROSE ROOM has offered me a unique opportunity to enjoy locally sourced and hand crafted meals that are both delicious and nutritious.
[1]
TOFU BAHN MI
HEIRLOOM TOMATO, FENNEL SLAW,
HONEY MUSTARD, TOFU ON BREAD
[2]
HONEYNUT FLATBREAD
ROASTED SQUASH, ONION,
FRESH GREENS, FLATBREAD
[NO CREAMY ALFREDO]
[3]
TOMATO TOAST
HEIRLOOM TOMATOES, FRESH PEACHES,
TROPEA ONIONS, RICOTTA ON TOAST
AS MY RECOVERY CONTINUES
MOVING BETTER
IN
SUPINE LEG EXTENSION
ASANA
DEMONSTRATING
BACK, PELVIC GIRDLE, LEG
MOBILITY
LOOKING FORWARD
Hopefully my daily evening practice of FORWARD SPLITS will enable me to regain, enhance movements as was possible back during June, 2013.
SHARE YOUR COMMENTS
BOB CROWTHER - NUTRITION - YOGA
