Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us (53 page)

And for the third meal, a cookout on the shore of Lake Washington, north of Seattle, the mere act of grocery shopping with Mansour Samadpour was enough to send me reaching for the hand sanitizer. One of the smartest
scientists I know, Mansour provides pathogen testing and controls for the country’s largest slaughterhouses, not to mention leafy green farms, and he used plastic bags from the produce section to pick up the packaged meat we bought, lest he get any pathogens on his hands. It wasn’t just microbes on the beef that worried Mansour, however. He was the first to suggest that I look at what companies
intentionally
add to their products, like salt, and I thank him deeply for this guidance. Among the other experts on meat I’m indebted to are Carl Custer, Jeffrey Bender, Gerald Zirnstein, Loren Lange, Craig Wilson, Ken Peterson, Kirk Smith, James Marsden, Felicia Nestor, Dave Theno, Charles Tant, Michael Doyle—and Bill Marler, the country’s dominant and passionate litigator on behalf of people who are sickened by food, and who opened some huge doors for my reporting. One of his clients, Stephanie Smith, is the bravest person I know.

The great meals—and the great company—didn’t stop there. In Philadelphia, Leslie Stein showed me to a Korean hot pot shop as we discussed the Monell Chemical Senses Center, where she and other scientists were hugely generous with their time. I thank, especially, Julie Mennella for the look inside the bliss point of kids, and Marcia Pelchat, Danielle Reed, Karen Teff, Michael Tordoff, Paul Breslin, Robert Margolskee, and Gary Beauchamp, their fearless leader, as well as two center alumni who went on to be stars in the world of food science, Dwight Riskey and Richard Mattes. At other institutions, Anthony Sclafani and Adam Drewnowski were fantastically helpful and patient.

Nothing quite matched the Cheez-Its that Kellogg cooked up to impress upon me how reliant it is on salt, and I thank its technicians, as well as those at Kraft, Campbell, and Cargill who prepared similar salt-less gems for me to gag on. There were many, many other industry scientists and marketers who were incredibly generous with their time, but I wish to especially thank Al Clausi, Howard Moskowitz, Michele Reisner, Jeffrey Dunn, Bob Drane, Bob Lin, Jim Behnke, Jerry Fingerman, John Ruff, Daryl Brewster, Steven Witherly, Parke Wilde, and Edward Martin. None were more encouraging than Deb Olson Linday, a marketing genius who pioneered some of the earliest efforts to boost the consumption of cheese,
but developed deep qualms about that enterprise. “I wish you Godspeed in writing your book,” she wrote in one note after we dined on Pad Thai north of Chicago. “Give ’em hell.”

I met Andy Ward of Random House over more noodles in midtown Manhattan, and knew right away he was an editor who could inspire writers to walk through walls. But it feels awkward thanking him. From the conception, to the refining, to the untangling of sentences by his amazingly skilled hands,
Salt Sugar Fat
became his book as much as it is mine, so it’s with great admiration—as a partner—that I hope to be lucky enough someday to embark on another adventure with him. Who I
can
deeply thank at Random House is Susan Kamil, for her unwavering support, as well as Tom Perry, Gina Centrello, Avideh Bashirrad, Erika Greber, Sally Marvin, Sonya Safro, Amelia Zalcman, Crystal Velasquez, and Kaela Myers—peerless pros, one and all. I also wish to thank Anton Ioukhnovets for the brilliant cover illustration, and Martin Schneider for his first-rate copyediting.

Scott Moyers, Andrew Wylie, and James Pullen at the Wylie Agency lent their aid and comfort at all the right moments, and I couldn’t have dreamt up a more effective team. When Scott returned to publishing, Andrew was there for me, instantly, whenever I needed, and I’m grateful for that.

This book would never have materialized without my editors and colleagues at
The New York Times
, starting with Christine Kay, who first suggested—up in the
Times
’ cafeteria, of course—that I do some reporting on peanuts, and then, much later, helped me think through the organization of this book and applied her exquisite editing hands to some early and rough copy. As always, I’m deeply indebted to Matt Purdy, the paper’s brilliant investigations editor, for his friendship, encouragement, and giving me unpressured time away from his clutches. I’m also grateful to the paper’s editor, Jill Abramson, who first suggested writing a book about food, and to her predecessor, Bill Keller, who warned me it would take longer than I anticipated, which, of course, it did. I’m humbled and grateful to know Gabe Johnson, one of the finest video journalists in the business who joined me in the early reporting, bringing his talent and passion and eye
for good food on the road. I’d also like to thank my hero in food writing, Kim Severson, and Barry Meier, whose work at the paper leaves me in awe. Thanks, too, to colleagues Tim Golden, Walt Bogdanich, Stephanie Saul, Debbie Sontag, Paul Fishleder, David McGraw, Andrew Martin, Andrea Elliott, Jim Rutenberg, Jim Glanz, Louise Story, Ginger Thompson, Mike McIntyre, Michael Luo, Jo Becker, David Barstow, Nancy Weinstock, Tony Cenicola, Jessica Kourkounis, Joel Lovell, Mark Bittman, Tara Parker-Pope, Jason Stallman, Debbie Leiderman, and the fabulous writer Charles Duhigg, my guide on all matters in publishing to whom I am deeply indebted. Beyond the paper, I want to thank David Rohde and Kristen Mulvihill, Kevin and Ruth McCoy for their friendship and meals, Laurie Fitch for her Wall Street introductions, Ellen Pollock for cluing me into the power of Stacy’s Pita Chips, and the chef/writer Tamar Adler for cooking a luscious meal that showed me how salt in the kitchen was a good thing for healthy eating. I also thank the indomitable Laura Dodd and Cynthia Colonna for research and other assistance, Kristen Courtney and Julia Mecke for squaring away the homefront, and my neighbor Gordon Pradl for a meticulous and thoughtful reading of chapters.

Lee Ellen and Clyde, my parents, taught me to love every food in the world, except liver and stewed okra, and I miss them dearly. This book is for them, and for Oma Bruch, Leah Heyn, Herman Heyn, Phyllis Weber, Frank and Thomas, Kenny and Dominique, Penelope and Emile, Myra and Buzzy Hettleman, Sally and John, Charlotte, Clyde and Gabrielle, Melchior, Bob and Sonya, Andrej, Stella and Robë Felicia and Rafael, and Mal. My wife, Eve Heyn, was there for me from start to the finish, working through reporting puzzles, taking her own fine editing hand to the copy, and granting her unconditional love. I admire and respect and love her dearly. My boy Aren, at thirteen, had my back the whole way, with encouragement and some good ideas, and my other boy Will, though just eight, couldn’t be fooled at the dinner table when I stopped talking about
E. coli
in one of his (formerly) favorite foods, hamburgers, and started chatting about Oreo cookies: “Dad! You’re
not
going to write about sugar now!” I did, Will. Sorry.

September 2012

T
his narrative has been drawn from a multitude of sources, including hundreds of interviews with individuals who have been closely associated with advancing or critiquing the activities of the processed food industry and more than one thousand papers and studies that examine the science of making processed foods as well as the health implications of their consumption. Many of these primary sources are cited in the notes that follow, but there are several that warrant a fuller description, in part to assist those who might wish to pursue their own examinations of the industry.

One of the most valuable sources of highly confidential records that provide a view of the inner workings of the food industry is entirely a matter of happenstance. This trove of records stems from the legal war waged over tobacco. Lawsuits brought by four states in 1994 to secure reimbursement for health care expenditures related to tobacco-related illnesses resulted in a 1998 settlement that required the largest tobacco manufacturers to release the internal records produced for the case. These records are being archived at the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library (LT) at the University of California, San Francisco, and number—as of September 2012—81 million pages in 14 million documents. The relevance to this book comes in the corporate affiliations. While the collection’s focus is on tobacco, the archives include the records of Philip Morris relating to its ownership of three of the largest food companies: Kraft, General Foods,
and Nabisco. I’m grateful to the library archivists for guiding me through their search mechanism that enabled me to ferret out the food-related documents. The records archived thus far span the years 1985 through 2002—the most critical period for examining the health issues relating to processed food—and include memos, meeting minutes, strategy papers, internal speeches, and sales data relating to the manufacturing, advertising, marketing, sales, and scientific research activities of the food companies. In the course of researching this book, I found only one news report that made use of the archive’s food-related records: a January 29, 2006, report in the
Chicago Tribune
entitled “Where There’s Smoke, There Might Be Food Research, Too,” which referenced several memos in which scientists from the food and tobacco divisions of Philip Morris discussed potential collaborations on flavorings and other sensory issues. The Legacy Library is currently acquiring more documents produced in a civil lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice against the nation’s top tobacco companies, including Philip Morris, following a 2006 federal judicial decision that the companies violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) by misleading the public about the health hazards of smoking, which the companies have appealed.

Another little-known archive of food company records is kept by the Council of Better Business Bureaus. One of its units, the National Advertising Division, provides an arbitration service for companies that allows them to settle disputes with each other out of court. These disputes typically involve challenges to the validity of advertising claims but also include cases that stem from the NAD’s own inquiries. I’m indebted to Linda Bean of the Better Business Bureau for sending me copies of dozens of cases involving Coca-Cola, Kellogg, Kraft, General Mills, among others, many of which contain details of the companies’ advertising strategies and marketing analysis—highly insightful information that is typically not made public even by the government’s consumer watchdog on issues relating to advertising, the Federal Trade Commission.

The marketing divisions of food companies release other confidential
information through yet another forum that is more public than they likely appreciate. Each year, advertising campaigns for food and other consumer goods are chosen for recognition by an organization called the Effie Awards, which was created in 1968 and was originally run by the American Marketing Association. The winners must show that they succeeded in boosting sales, so the food companies and their advertising agencies prepare case studies of their marketing campaigns that include details on the product’s financial history as well as the consumer targeting strategies they used to achieve the increased sales. I was able to obtain and review dozens of these case studies, which were posted online by the awards organization.

The food scientists who design the thousands of new products created each year have several forums through which they discuss and share the details of their work, including the Institute of Food Technologists. Founded in 1939, the IFT holds an annual meeting and food expo, and I am grateful to the organization for allowing me to attend its 2010 meeting in Chicago. More than twenty-one thousand food industry personnel turned out for this five-day event, which included nine hundred exhibitors and several hundred workshops on a wide range of topics, from adjusting food formulations in order to target the emotional needs of consumers, to controlling pathogens in food, to designing environmentally friendly packaging. Importantly, the IFT also produces a compilation of scientific papers, in abstract form, relating to the design of foods, and I am indebted to the organization for providing me with a copy of 2010 Book of Abstracts. Its 1,400 entries provided me with numerous industry contacts and leads on the most current scientific undertakings in the production of processed foods. Another scientific group, the Association for Chemoreception Sciences, produces its own annual collection of hundreds of abstracts, which I found immensely useful.

On the consumer side, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, based in Washington, has been at the forefront of major challenges to the food industry since its founding in 1971. I am grateful to the organization’s director, Michael Jacobson, as well as its senior staffers on nutrition, Bonnie
Liebman and Margo Wootan, for opening its files to me. The organization also has a deep archive of reports and studies that it makes publicly available through its website.

The shroud behind which the food industry conducts much of its business extends to the nutritional profiles of its products. Even today, there is only limited public disclosure of the ingredients they use in their products; they are required to list the ingredients on their packages in the order of their relative amounts, with largest ingredients first, but do not need to specify the actual amounts. More significantly, the product formulations are in constant flux. For nutritional information such as calories and the total amounts of sugar, fat, and sodium, I have relied on the companies’ own websites whenever possible. I have also relied on the online service Calorie Count, which is owned by
The New York Times
. It posts the nutritional information for products, as well as a grade, from A to F, based on the nutritional scores.

Finally, the enterprise of manufacturing and marketing of foods is, at its most basic level, about sales. Companies are typically loath to provide details on specific products or brands. In numerous instances, I was able to obtain sales data from SymphonyIRI, a market research group, based in Chicago, and I am grateful for their assistance.

Michael Moss, Brooklyn, New York