"Salt, Sugar, and Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us"

I recently started reading "Salt, Sugar, Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us" by Michael Moss.  I stumbled upon his book after reading an article in the NY Times about how food companies have added so  much junk to their foods, that we can't stop craving it.  And, if they reduce the amount of one ingredient (sugar), they have to increase another ingredient (fat) to make up for the taste difference.  We now think that this is how foods should taste.  The book so far is excellent, it's divided into 3 parts (Salt, Sugar, Fat) and it starts out with a litte

In 1947 a man named Clausi was hired by General Foods and one of his first assignments was to create an instant pudding for Jello.  Up until this point you could only buy the cook-and-serve type of pudding which could take hours to prepare and chill.  It took him years to meet this goal because General Foods only wanted him to use pure ingredients and he wasn't able to make the pudding gel correctly.  Then, a competitor came out with their own patent for instant pudding, and all of the rules went out the window.  General Foods told Clausi that he could use whatever additives he needed - they just wanted an instant pudding that could be ready in 30 minutes.  He added two chemicals to the recipe and it worked!  And Jello instant pudding was added to the growing list of convenience foods sweeping the country.

At this time in  history, women were starting to enter the workforce and needed more convenient foods to prepare for their families.  They used to spend hours in the kitchen cooking foods from scratch, and now they needed things they could just open and heat.  During this time home economics teachers were still teaching students how to grocery shop on a budget and cook healthy food from scratch.  Their instruction was going against what the food companies were trying to sell with their convenience products that weren't so healthy.  Betty Dickson was a well-known home ec teacher at the time who had won an award for her teaching, so the convenience world invented their own figure - Betty Crocker.  And the world of boxed cake mixes began.

From this point on the major food companies realized that to make a profit, foods needed to taste good.  In order for that to happen, they needed a lot of sugar, salt, and/or fat.  Cereal was invented and some contained as much as 50% sugar!  Soft drinks grew in popularity and sweetened fruit beverages became a daily treat for kids.  One beverage - Capri Sun - has some flavors that contain more sugar than soda (Wild Cherry).  They also label their pouches with "natural fruit drink" and "all natural ingredients" because of the presence of fruit concentrate (a stripped version of juice that is mostly sugar, devoid of the fiber, flavors, and aromas of real fruit).  One grandmother sued Capri Sun when she realized that its ingredients were virtually identical to soda and not "all natural".  Eighteen days later Kraft decided to change the labeling to "no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives".  Some foods are also labeled with "reduced sugar", because when they switched from real sugar to high fructose corn syrup, less syrup is required to achieve the same sweet taste.  Thus, the amount of sweetener was reduced.  

This book does get me all fired up!  I know that food companies want to make a profit and that is their main concern, but I can't help feeling tricked by some of their schemes.  And the more sugary cereal, fruit drinks, soda, and oreos I eat, the more I want.  There is definitely an addictive component to sugar in that it acts similar to some drugs in how it affects the brain.