"Sugar, Salt, Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us" Part 2

CHEESE

"Sugar, Salt, Fat - How the Food Giants Hooked Us"  by Michael Moss Part 2

FAT

This past week I got to the second section of Michael Moss's book which focused on FAT.  Most people agree that fat is bad for you and that it can lead to heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.  A lot of this section focused on cheese and how Americans on average, eat 33 pounds of cheese per year!  The amount that we eat has more than tripled since the 1970s when cheese was becoming a bigger part of our diet.  

About 40-50 years ago, the dairy industry was producing too much milk.  There was more milk than Americans would drink.  They didn't want to reduce their production, otherwise it would not be profitable.  The government stepped in to subsidize milk and they purchased all of the milk that the dairy farms were unable to sell.  As a result, the government had this huge amount of milk that they needed to store.

Back in the 1970s, people were starting to pay attention to fat levels in milk.  They had 4 choices - whole, 2%, 1%, and skim.  More people were switching to the lower fat milks and as a result, the dairy industry also had a lot of milk fat accumulating that they did not need.  (In reality, whole milk is just 3% fat so if you switch from whole to 2% you are not making much of a change).  They started to store their excess milk and milk fat in these underground storage areas in Kansas.  When the Reagan administration started, the government was spending 1 million dollars per day for storage!  Reagan wanted to balance the budget so he put a stop to the government subsidization of milk.

Now what were they going to do with all of that excess milk and milk fat?  Make a lot of cheese!  Up until this point, cheese was a food that was enjoyed once in awhile, and it was usually eaten on its own before or after a meal, not added to other foods.  Large amounts of cheese started to be produced and most people did not know that cheeses are high in fat - 1 oz. of cheddar cheese contains 6g of saturated fat which is 30% of your daily recommended amount!  And that is in just 1 oz.  I don't know about you, but when I do consume cheese, it's a lot more than that!  Cheddar cheese is 75% fat and more and more convenience products were being invented that contained cheese.  The government also invested in programs to convince Americans that we needed more milk and cheese!  I'm sure most of us can remember the "Got Milk?" campaign that started in 1993 and other campaigns that we were exposed to in elementary school.

A  lot of people eat cheese several times per day, and most of it is not part-skim mozzarella.  High levels of saturated fat in our diets directly leads to high cholesterol.  Want an easy way to lower cholesterol quickly?  Give up animal foods (meat, dairy) and your cholesterol will drop drastically because animal foods are the only dietary source of cholesterol.  Your body makes what it needs and we don't need to take in more cholesterol through our diet.  Plant foods contain 0g of cholesterol.  The last time I had my cholesterol checked it was 111.  

Here are some easy ways to reduce your cheese consumption:

-  Substitute guacamole or salsa for cheese in Mexican dishes.  Avocados are high in fat - but in polyunsaturated fats which are good for you.

-  Make your own pizza and put lots of veggies on top and either skip the cheese or only use a little

-  Try soy or rice cheeses.  The kinds sold by Kroger here are not good, but I have heard that Whole Foods and Trader Joes sell better kinds.

-  If you do eat cheese, choose part-skim mozzarella or Neufchatel cheese (reduced fat cream cheese)

- Substitute avocado slices, onions, peppers, and/or tomatoes on your sandwiches instead of cheese.  My favorite sandwich right now is avocado, tomato, and mustard.  And they will make it for you at Panera if you ask!

- Pay attention to how much cheese is in convenience foods.  Look at the fat content.  If the amount of fat calories is more than 50% of the total calories, skip it.  To find fat calories look at the top of the food label, or multiply the grams of fat by 9.

"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.