Read Online Salt Sugar Fat by Michael Moss - Free Book Online

recommended were even bolder. Noting that people were getting on average 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day, the association urged Americans to cut back. Moderately active women should get no more than 5 teaspoons of sugar—9 for sedentary, middle-aged men—in what nutritionists call “discretionary calories.” These are the treats that people who are watching their weight can have once they meet their daily nutritional needs, and the association was not messing around. For women, the 5-teaspoon daily limit would mean having barely half of a 12-ounce can of Coke, or one Twinkie, or one-and-a-half Fig Newtons, or a half-cup of Jell-O. To be clear, those are connected by
or
, not
and
. Five teaspoons don’t get you very far in the grocery store.
    This time, however, food companies didn’t need Monell’s help to mount a vigorous defense. Their dependence on sugar by now ran so deep that representatives from every corner of the industry, from cookies to soda, attended a summit the AHA held in Washington in the spring of 2010 to discuss its proposal. One after another they made their case: It wasn’t just taste that made their use of sugar invaluable. Sugar was critical to the entire manufacturing process. To lessen it would jeopardize the nation’s supply of food.
    The candy makers cited the bulk, texture, and crystallization that sugar gave them. The cereal makers added color, crisp, and crunch to the list of sugar’s miracles. The bread makers conceded that they rely on every known form of the stuff in their factories—corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, dextrose, inverted syrup, malt, molasses, honey, and table sugar in three forms (granulated, powdered, and liquid). To drive their point home, the bakers cooked up special versions of their products using sugar substitutes, and they splashed pictures of the horrific results on the screen. The message was clear: Limit sugar, and you’re left with a sad bunch of cookies, crackers, and breads that come out shrunken, pale, flat, or distended.
    “Let’s get practical,” a food engineer from Israel told the group before launching into a chemistry lesson on a browning phenomenon called the Maillard reaction. Maillard is responsible for much of the pleasing caramel coloring in processed food, from quick breads to roasted meats, andMaillard can’t happen in many foods without a group of sugars that includes fructose.
    Not to be outdone, a corn refiner’s consultant wrapped up his presentation by suggesting the AHA’s focus on sugar was misguided. If it really wanted to look at calories and the things in the American diet that made people gain weight, why pick on sugar when the bigger culprit may be fat?
    “Certainly you can reformulate foods to reduce sugar and salt,” this consultant, John White, told me later. “You can replace them with noncaloric sweeteners or synthetic fats. But the character of the product always changes, and you have to accept the tradeoff.”
    There would be no need for tradeoffs, however. The Heart Association’s recommendation came and went, with little action by the industry to cut back. Sugar’s value to food companies was only going up.

chapter two
“How Do You Get People to Crave?”
    J ohn Lennon couldn’t find it in England, so he had cases of it shipped from New York to fuel the
Imagine
sessions. The Beach Boys, ZZ Top, and Cher took no chances either: They all stipulated in their contract riders that it be put in their dressing rooms when they toured. Hillary Clinton asked for it, too, when she traveled as First Lady, and ever after her hotel suites were dutifully stocked.
    What they all wanted, and got, was Dr Pepper. Its unique taste, neither cola nor root beer, has won it a global cult following. Its most rabid devotees proudly call themselves Peppers, belong to a club called the 10-2-4—so named for one of the early advertising campaigns, which encouraged people to drink three Dr Peppers a day, at ten, two, and four