Bay Area Journalist Claims “Junk Food” Companies Deceive Americans

According to Bay area journalist April Short, who apparently focuses on social justice reporting, public concerns about food health in the United States have compelled “the junk food industry” to use “disturbing deceptions . . . to keep Americans hooked on its junk.” In her June 18, 2013, AlterNet article titled “You Won’t Believe What the Food Industry Is Doing to Keep Americans Hooked on Junk,” Short claims that the deceptions include processing to make products look more “natural,” “marketing to children under the guise of charity,” and creating foods “manufactured to include just the right combination of the sugar, fat and salt our limbic brains love.”

Citing Michael Moss’s book Salt Sugar Fat, Short discusses how food companies have made a science of producing foods that consumers cannot resist, including using just the right amounts of salt, sugar and fat, otherwise known as the “bliss point”; creating the “mouthfeel” consumers “most crave”; and developing foods that melt in the mouth so quickly “that the brain is fooled into thinking it is consuming fewer calories than it actually is. The packaged-food scientists want to avoid triggering sensory-specific satiety, the brain mechanism that tells a person to stop eating when it is overwhelmed by flavors. The goals are either passive overeating, which is the excessive eating of foods that are high in fat because the human body is slow to recognize the caloric content of rich foods, or auto-eating: that is, eating without thinking or without even being hungry.”