Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us

Okay you may have to settle in because I get the feeling that this post may be long.

I really enjoyed this book. Although it still takes me longer to read a non-fiction book than fiction (and I fully recognize that it should) this one was more engaging than the two previous food books I read.

First let me say that if you read this book and then go to the grocery store you will be disgusted.  If you already try to pay close attention to what you eat, you probably already know that food additives can be harmful to your health.  I still offer that if you read this book and then go to the grocery store you will shop with contempt towards the food industry. This book tackles one of those topics everyone has a vague idea about, but nobody really addresses. We all know (or at least the majority of us probably know) that junk food is full of crap that's not real food. It's chemicals mixed up to imitate food. We have all heard that too much salt can lead to high blood pressure. Too much fat can lead to obesity and heart disease. Too much sugar can lead to obesity and all the complications that arise from obesity.

This book starts out assuming you know all that.  So what it's really about is how the big food companies like Nestle, PespiCo, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Frito-Lay, Oscar Mayer, General Mills, Kellogg, etc... try to walk this fine line of appeasing shareholders and the government.  Their true purpose in life is to make money for the shareholders.  Every once in a while, though, we pesky consumers speak up and say that this "food" is crap and needs to be fixed. Well then they try to fix it, or at least make a half-hearted attempt to look like they are going to fix it.  What they are really doing is trying to buy time for the storm to clear up so they can continue on, business as usual.

The author talks to food scientists who, over the years, have created, developed, or 'improved' upon products such as Tang, Instant Jell-O, Lunchables, Oreos, Lays, Campbell's Soup....the list goes on and on. After reading about it all, you really see how much the specialty of Food Science is really mostly science and not a lot of food. What I really appreciated about the book was how the history of companies was explored and how he really dug deep (even using the FOI Act several times) to obtain government records of meetings between the food industry and the government to address the problems of crap food that is making the population sick. Another aspect that I appreciated was how he raised the question: How can the government - USDA and FDA - simultaneously get money and favors from food industry lobbyists yet also supposedly be an advocate for the United States population? The answer, of course, is that they can't. You can't serve two masters. It's clear by this book, that the consumer is the loser in this deal.

There are so many salient points made in this book. I really could just go on and on about how the food companies target minorities and young children for certain products. How there are laws in place that make it easy for unaccountability to be the status quo when things go south. How they try to manipulate the USDA daily recommendations for nutrients. How they continue to add salt, sugar, and fat to foods creating a pseudo-addiction. What's most alarming is there is data out there now about what specifically needs to change if we are ever to consider processed food edible, but the big players are unwilling to budge. Incidentally, while reading this book I went to the grocery store on two occasions and never before was I so hyper vigilant of the horrible options on the shelves. I highly recommend this book if you want to further open your eyes to the travesty that is the United States food industry.

Their bottom line is money. My bottom line is to take good care of myself. So I guess we will be at odds with one another for quite some time.

This quote sums up the book quite nicely:  

"It's simply not in the nature of these companies to care about the consumer in an empathetic way." 

The Omnivore's Dilemma

I can already tell I am going to have a tough time reading all the non-fiction I plan on reading if it's going to take me 25 days to finish one book.  The book was really interesting, but I just have a hard time reading facts for prolonged periods of time so I did fall asleep a few times while reading it. When I'm reading fiction, hours can go by and I won't even notice. I guess that's why it's my challenge to read more non-fiction this year. I will press on!

Anyway, since the last book I read was by Michael Pollen, I decided to continue with him and read this book. It was full of disturbing facts about the food chain in the United States. My head was spinning every time I trudged through a section of the book. In the first section he describes how corn became a staple crop in all processed foods in the U.S. as well as in the majority of meat in the U.S. since it has become the grain of choice to feed to animals even when they are not hard-wired to eat it (cows are supposed to eat grass in case you didn't know). In the second section he describes the meat industry in all its horror.  I think anyone who has any interest in what kind of food they put in their body is already well aware of how these mass production slaughterhouses work.  What he also does, though, is go to a farm that is getting it right by allowing Nature to do the complex work it would normally do if we humans didn't come along and mess it up on occasion by trying to over-simplify. He also turns the term 'organic' over on its head and will make you think twice about what that really means. In the final section, he discusses the ethics of eating animals and the ethics of eating vegetables (apparently animals like mice and woodchucks still die when grains are harvested so no diet is completely cruelty-free). 

In each section he prepares or eats a meal that is related to the information he shared in that section. In the first section he eats a completely processed meal from McDonalds, with a nice dose of high fructose corn syrup. In the second section, he buys local, 'organic' ingredients and makes a meal to share with others. In the final section, he actually hunts and gathers for his meal with the help of a local man. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. Some parts did run a bit long for me and there are some repetitive points that I felt I had already heard so many times from other sources. Some of the more informative sections for me were the ones about corn, organic foods, and the ethics of eating.  I like that at the end of each section he brought it back to the common denominator of eating a meal - something we do on a daily basis.  If you are not already hyper-aware of what you eat, you may be after reading this. Even though I am finding it challenging to keep up momentum when reading non-fiction, I'm glad I stuck with it for this book.

In Defense of Food

Well, there's nothing quite like stuffing your face during the holiday season while reading a book about how horrible our food system is here in the United States.  I read Food Rules by this same author and really enjoyed it's brevity and bluntness. I still apply those rules when I shop (for the most part).  I try to be very cognizant about what I'm buying and eating.

This book breaks it down a little further and discusses how the various branches of Food Science have detracted from common sense eating.  The author discusses how, by focusing only on one ingredient, the scientists essentially have made dozens of diet recommendations that could actually be pretty faulty.  For instance, by focusing on fat allegedly being bad for you, they have missed the nutritional value of the whole food that may contain the fat. He also discusses, briefly, how lobbyists in the industrial food markets (i.e. dairy farmers, meat processing plants) do their best to make sure certain research doesn't reach you.

His research seems sound and there are enough references and resources in this book to make your head spin. You could easily end up reading about food for years if you dig into all the different books and articles out there.  If you have an interest in healthy eating (not dieting) I think this is a good book to read. It's not preachy and you can come to your own conclusions.  If you never read Food Rules, you're in luck because the third and final section of the book is basically Food Rules.  So, in a way, you're reading two books.   I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to make a decision to just eat good food for better health and not follow fad diets and crazes.

The Sweet Life in Paris

Of course I had to read one more book about Paris before the end of the year. This one was another true story about someone in the culinary field moving to Paris to live out some dreams. The author is a pastry chef who moves from San Francisco. In each chapter he talks about the differences between living in the United States and Paris and discusses his experiences with food in the City of Lights. He also includes a recipe or two at the end of each chapter.  If you are a budding chef or a foodie, you can definitely get some good ideas from here. A lot of the recipes sound pretty mouth-watering.

I think I'm getting used to the American-in-Paris books because I'm starting to notice the pattern in them. The book is a quick read and although it wasn't my favorite book about living in Paris, it was fairly enjoyable.

Yes, Chef

I heard about Red Rooster a while back, but have never been.  I'll be back up in NYC next weekend taking my mom to see a play so I figured we could check this place out for dinner. I only vaguely knew that the chef who revitalized Red Rooster had written a memoir.  I remember hearing about it, but just putting the book on my 'To Read' list, not racing out to get it. Since my mom is coming up soon, I finally grabbed a copy of the book from the library and read it.

As a memoir, the book is really good.  It's well written and Samuelsson does a good job describing memories through food.  His recollections of food are often vivid and colorful. His recollection of his adopted family and his struggles as a black chef are heartfelt.  He really tries to dissect what makes him tick and why he has the drive he has. I found myself really enjoying the story.  Then he gets to the part in his life where he has a one-night stand and the woman gets pregnant. She keeps the baby and Samuelsson pays child support.  However, he voluntarily does not meet his daughter until she is fourteen years old.  I couldn't wrap my head around that.  He gives a couple of reasons for this, but honestly I couldn't see it. I mean damn, really dude? Not even for, like, one holiday? Or right after she was born? Or one birthday in fourteen years?  Or hell even just her first birthday?  For fourteen years?  I found myself feeling quite sad for his daughter and the pain she went through growing up. When he finally does meet her, it's bittersweet for both of them. He put in thousands and thousands of hours towards cooking, and that helped him contribute financially to his daughter, but my wish for him is that he mends that personal relationship because the part that money can't buy is damaged.

That didn't make me enjoy the book any less; it just made me kind of sad for him.  If you consider yourself a foodie and love vivid descriptions of falling in love with food, pick this up.  Just realize that he really does put it all in this memoir and it's not just about food. It's also about sacrifice, personal relationships, family, food security, travel, and a little bit of politics. Even though I felt a bit saddened by his absence in his daughter's life, it does not diminish the good writing and the flow of the story.  It just goes to show that no matter how successful one becomes, there is always a struggle.

Eating Animals

Years ago, I read a book called Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz.  That book led me to the decision to stop eating pork and beef.  Her book left such an impression on me that I changed my whole diet based on it.  This book, Eating Animals, tries to make the reader see how horrible factory farming is and why people should make the ethical decision to skip meat. However, it misses the mark because the author then produces evidence of good farmers who use humane practices. By doing that, he offers an "out" for those who still wish to eat meat.  He also tries to weave in personal stories about meals he's had in the past, but I felt those stories interrupted the flow of the facts.  After a while, the arguments for and against eating meat just go around in circles.  Should we? Shouldn't we? Should we? Shouldn't we? I had high hopes for this book, but if you really want to know what is going on in our meat industry I highly recommend Slaughterhouse by Gail A. Eisnitz instead of this one.

The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry

I am feeling that old tug of "ditch desire".  Ditch desire is when I deeply desire ditching my life and following my passion.  Of course that would probably mean I have to actually whittle down all my interests into my one true passion, but I digress.  Whenever I feel ditch desire settling in, I grab a book about a person who does actually ditch their life as they know it and go for the gold.  So I was drawn to this book about Kathleen Flinn who was fired from a corporate, rat-race job and decided she was going to attend Le Cordon Bleu culinary school in Paris.  The book tackles several of my favorite themes:  travel, adventure, following your dreams, food, and love.  The book reads quickly and the story has the requisite ups and downs that come along with the uncertainty of a new life.  I enjoyed it as a nice, easy summer read.  I enjoyed Paris, My Sweet more, but this book has just the right amount of inspiration to make me believe that one day I will be able to leave it all behind and pursue whatever dreams may come my way.

Paris, My Sweet

LOVED LOVED LOVED this book. I don't know if it's because I still think of Paris on a daily basis ever since my December trip or because I love desserts, but this book made me very happy.  Amy Thomas describes the vibe and the feel of Paris and New York perfectly.  She experiences both cities through desserts. It is amazing how food can unknowingly describe a city.  Paris is steeped in history and the dessert and food choices reflect that.  New York is forever changing and the sweet offerings throughout the city continually demonstrate that. If you have experienced both cities and have moments when you daydream about the days you toured, lived in, worked in, or played in either city, this book will capture you and make you smile. It may also make you start counting your pennies to plan your next sweet trip. If you enjoy travel and desserts this is an excellent summer read.

Medium Raw

I have a secret crush on Anthony Bourdain.  I think he's awesome! The only other book I read by him was Kitchen Confidential, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Medium Raw was just as enjoyable to me.  If you like food and travel, this book is right up your alley.  I felt like I was immersed in multiple "No Reservations" episodes and I loved it. His backstage knowledge about the inner workings of the food industry and the great chefs of our time is unparalleled.