Pulitzer Prize winning author, Michael Moss, talked about how food industries are spending trillions of dollars on processed food which essentially caused an increase of obesity over the past couple centuries. His #1 New York best-selling investigative report, Salt, Sugar, Fat, discusses a time when he visited the Kellogg’s company headquartered at Battle Creek, Michigan. After talking to representatives from this company about their food and how there is so much salt in their branded products. The company invited Moss to test their food products that did not incorporate any salt in the ingredients and as expected, the taste was bland. From this taste test, the company showed Moss why salt was so important in their products. Salt gives …show more content…
Food companies do whatever they can in order to promote their product even though they are full of salts, sugar, and fats according to the Monell Science Center. These industries engineer their food products so as to target your taste buds and cause you to crave for more. The end goal of businesses is to make as much money as possible while giving what the customers really wants---junk food. Moss continued by explaining an experiment between two groups of children raised on grocery foods and on home cooking. The results showed that kids who grew up with grocery foods craved foods that were salty or sugary compared to the other group who did not have this …show more content…
As of now, I am taking a business seminar course and I understand some of the ideologies and methodologies that businesses follow. One part of me says that it very clever that businesses are using science to their advantage in order to promote their product, but another part of me says that it is wrong that they are marketing junk food because it contributes to the increase of obesity in America. I find the idea the of marketing healthy food would benefit everyone in that businesses would be able to make their money and customers could live a healthy lifestyle. However, there needs to be people that would have to invent new foods that limits the amount of salts, sugars, and fat, yet still maintains a savory taste. I believe it will take time, but when the right foods are produced, then it would start trending and businesses would have to cater towards the health of the customers instead of causing unhealthy
There should be limit’s that stop’s food companies from promoting themselves as appealing when in reality their food products are a hazard to our bodies. As Barboza states in his article “There is a need to set specific standards on what is marketed to children…” we are in agreement that, what ever kids see on T.V. or being marketed, they want it! As a child I remember that I wanted many things I saw on T.V. like Carl's Jr, Lucky Charms, Mcdonald's, Gushers, ect… When eating these food products, as you get older it affects your health. A good
The book Salt, Sugar, and Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us discusses the danger of food with its readers. The dangers of food discussed in the book are the ingredients of Salt, Sugar and Fat in the food individuals consume on a daily basis. Producers use these ingredients to their advantage to get the consumers bliss point. The bliss point attained is used by the food giants to achieve a profit. However due to research on the health risks of these ingredients food companies are strategizing in order to maintain their profit and earn more of a profit.
Nestle, Marion. Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
Published In his article “How Junk Food Can End Obesity”, David Freedman begins by talking about how misinformed people are about wholefood restaurants and stores. These stores are run by so-called health food experts. Freedman makes himself distinguishable himself from the position of Michael Pollan and his adherents. His adherents are known as Pollanites. They are the people who believe that processed food is the reason we have health and obesity issues.
The 2009 movie Food Inc. describes the major role that food production plays within many lives. This movie revealed that there is a very small variety of companies that consumers purchase their food from. These few companies actually control what is out on the shelves and what we put into our bodies. These companies have changed food production into a food production business. Many of these companies experiment with ways to create large quantities of food at low production costs to result in an enormous amount of profit for themselves. Some of the production cost cuts also result in less healthy food for the population. Instead of worrying about the health of the population, the companies are worried about what will make them the most money.
of Philip Morris, said “People could point to these things and say, ‘They’ve got too much sugar, they’ve got too much salt […] well, that’s what the consumer wants, and we’re not putting a gun to their head to eat it. That’s what they want.” (Moss 267) However, consumers are being unconsciously forced to fund food industries that produce junk food. Companies devote much of their time and effort into manipulating us to purchase their products. For instance, Kraft’s first Lunchables campaign aimed for an audience of mothers who had far too much to do to make time to put together their own lunch for their kids. Then, they steered their advertisements to target an even more vulnerable pool of people; kids. This reeled in even more consumers because it allowed kids to be in control of what they wanted to eat, as Bob Eckert, the C.E.O. of Kraft in 1999, said, “Lunchables aren’t about lunch. It’s about kids being able to put together what they want to eat, anytime, anywhere” (Moss 268). While parents are innocently purchasing Lunchables to save time or to satisfy the wishes of their children, companies are formulating more deceiving marketing plans, further studying the psychology of customers, and conducting an excessive quantity of charts and graphs to produce a new and addictive
The sole purpose of a company is to offer goods and services while making a profit. If people have a liking for food products with so many unhealthy items and are willing to buy them, the companies have no obligation to reduce the amount of added ingredients. The companies aren’t the ones forcing the public to overeat. However, these companies shouldn’t market their products to people who they can easily exploit, like children and those who are penurious. Michael Moss, author of the article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” interviews several people who worked for certain big brand companies and gives us an abundant amount of information on how the food companies make and market their food to “get us hooked”.
While many think it's one or the other, we should be working together. Without food companies most people would die, without people, the companies will die. While we need healthy food, some companies make healthy food. While some companies produce unhealthy options it's okay once in a while to snack out and have a treat for yourself. I can say there is a way to achieve balance.
Not only are today’s families far less active, but easy access to rich-tasting, cheap food can be addictive. The fast food industry knows this and uses this information to make foods which make the brain crave more. In his book Salt Sugar Fat, author Michael Moss discussed this in an interview with food scientist Steve Witherly.
The only problem with Michael Pollan’s outlook on nutritionism is the fact that he is completely against scientific research on the subject because history in this matter has not been reliable. With any good, there is also bad that follows. This relates to scientific research on nutrients which have provided many useful things to society, yet brought some evils such as processed foods which have plagued the American Diet for many years. Amongst all the countries in the world the United States of America has a population in which two-thirds of their people are obese. When it comes to processed foods, people should take this chemically engineered food with a grain of salt, take a more traditional approach and use current knowledge to promote a healthy
Focusing on the well being of the customers should be the main focus of any major company, especially fast food companies. By reducing the amount of unhealthy choices for children and replacing them with nutritional foods, the nation’s youth will benefit.
Take a second to understand why fast food firms choose to sell products that are unhealthy. Their unhealthy products are in a high demand in the food market; in fact, they are simply giving us what we demand for. Most firms have started putting food labels on their menus so there is no room for excuse when making the right food choices. Nobody is forcing us to eat a whole box of Krispy crème donuts or a super-size meal at McDonalds. I believe that we are always looking for shortcuts in life and now we can anticipate there is a shortcut in what we put into our bodies. So we are consistently after things that are cheap, fast and affordable. Who better to attend to our needs than the fast food industry?
To begin, due to federal regulations, Big Food cannot claim their products prevent or cure any disease in advertisements. Instead, Big Food advertises their products as contributors to increased health and wellness. These claims are legal to advertise as long as they are supported by science or data. This combination of science and marketing redefined the notion of healthy food to change consumers’ and the governmental perceptions of certain products. The results of the increase of “health-promoting foods” is billion of dollars in profit for Big Food and multiple generation of confused consumers. In order to understand how Big Food reaps the benefits of these “health-promoting foods,” one must first understand how they obtain positive judgements about their products health benefits.
...ng sugar and fats. The junk food companies know this, but they don’t care, because it makes them rich. In summary, this is why by law, all fast-food companies should have forced limitations on distribution which has lead to the rise of obesity in America.
It became so clear that junk foods lead to a punch of catastrophic diseases like obesity, type two diabetes, vascular diseases and cardiac disorders. Those kinds of diseases cost more than $150 billion annually, just to diagnose, treat people who suffer from them. That disease is chronic and leads to many health-related issues, for example, obesity considers a risk factor for type two diabetes, and high blood pressure, joint disorders and many others (The Denver Post 2012). The key of preventing many chronic problems is nutrition. Low income plays an important role of limiting most people to buy and eat a healthy diet and in the other hand, it is easy for people budgets to purchase junk foods. So controlling the prices of healthy foods to be suitable for all people make good nutrition available for everyone. Adequate diets mean decreasing the epidemic of those serious diseases, and stopping the spread and break the bad sequences that may happen. Long-term exposure to junk foods that are full with chemicals like additives, preservatives have led to chronic illnesses difficult to treat. Also, the chemical added to junk foods are tasted unique and made millions of people becoming addicted to them and are available everywhere for example in restaurants, cafes, lunchrooms (The Denver Post