Hooked Food

The number one New York Times best seller In China, for the first time, the people who weigh too much now outnumber those who weigh too little. In Mexico, the obesity rate has tripled in the past three decades. In the UK over 60 per cent of adults and 30 per cent of children are overweight, while the United States remains the most obese country in the world. We are hooked on salt, sugar and fat.

Everyone knows how hard it can be to maintain a healthy diet. But what if some of the decisions we make about what to eat are beyond our control? Is it possible that food is addictive, like drugs or alcohol? And to what extent does the food industry know, or care, about these vulnerabilities? In Hooked, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Michael Moss sets out to answer these questions and to find the true peril in our food.

Em 1999, os principais líderes da indústria alimentícia, da Coca-Cola à Nabisco, se encontraram para uma reunião secreta de emergência. A pauta: o que fazer diante da epidemia de obesidade das últimas décadas. Ao longo de quase um século, fabricantes de alimentos disputam o paladar do público misturando nas fórmulas de seus produtos quantidades cada vez maiores de sal, açúcar e gordura. Em outras palavras: tentam criar alimentos mais saborosos, custe o que custar.