If you're someone who has turned to snacking on junk food more in the pandemic, you're not alone. Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Michael Moss says processed food is engineered to be "craveable," not unlike a cigarette or a hit of cocaine.
His 2013 book, Salt Sugar Fat, explored food companies' aggressive marketing of those products and their impact on our health. In his new book, Hooked, Moss updates the food giants' efforts to keep us eating what they serve — and how they're responding to complaints from consumers and health advocates.
Processed food, he notes, is "inexpensive, it's legal, it's everywhere. And the advertising from the companies is cueing us to remember those products and we want those products constantly. So the food environment ... is one of those key things that makes food even more problematic for so many people."
Moss notes that memory — and nostalgia in particular — play a big role in the foods we crave.
"The soda companies discovered that if they put a soda in the hands of a child when they're at a ballpark with their parents, that soda will forever be associated with that joyous moment," he says. "So later on in life, when that child now wants to experience a joyous moment, they're going to think of soda."
During the pandemic, he says, many people have sought comfort in the snacks they remember from childhood. "We went into the store, and we started buying products we hadn't had since we were kids," he says — recalling "great joyous moments."
Moss examines the way these companies capitalize on our memories, cravings and brain chemistry to keep us snacking.
Interview:
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