Book Review: Salt Sugar Fat

Michael Moss' Salt Sugar Fat is a broad-reaching overview of the processed food industry, it's history, leading players, tactics and business models, and most of all, the dependence of the industry on salt, sugar and fat to maximize revenue and profit.

There's plenty in here to open your eyes as a consumer of these products. Hopefully that helps to curb some bad eating habits. Like learning about the negatives of consuming cocaine might prevent you from taking it... only with oreos :-)

For me, I found it most interesting to think about at the high level. Viewed at the macro level and over the long term, it raised interesting questions and showed some successful (and not) examples of how people are tackling them. How does an industry avoid the "local maxima" that may be detrimental to it and it's consumers in the long term? When is giving consumers what they believe they want something you should NOT do? How do you take the high road when your competitors are not? To what degree is industry stewardship YOUR role as a company or as an individual? All interesting food for thought that I believe are applicable to the tech and games industries as well. But that's the subject of another post for another time.

In any case, really good read if either of the above interests you.

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us