Addiction to food, ravenous hunger, pangs of hunger.
Is it possible that the food industry is partly responsible, by manipulating our choices at the table, for these phenomena?
This was stated by the American journalist Michael Moss, Pulitzer Prize winner, who for years has been conducting in-depth surveys on food marketing and the role of industries in our health. It is famous for the book “Fat, sweet, salty”, also translated into Italian.

Moss has published a new book entitled “Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions”. addictions “, my translation).

In this book he explains how our feeling of hunger is manipulated by the food industry.

Alongside things that many already know, the fact for example that many products affect our hunger and satiety center thanks to the combo of sugars, fats, salt and additives, making it difficult for us to satiate, in this book Moss goes further.
In fact, he accuses the industry of omitting some information in order to sell its products.
And to have even exploited the Covid pandemic to increase their profits.

HOW THE FOOD INDUSTRY HANDLES OUR FEELING OF HUNGER

One of the initial aspects that the journalist focuses on is the trap of food variety.

It will have happened to many, he writes, to arrive at the supermarket to buy breakfast cereals … and to find hundreds of different proposals that send us into confusion. However, what the food variety generates is not only uncertainty about the purchase. Images of products with different tastes tickle our imagination, making our mouth water at the thought of how many things can be added to simple cereals. Chocolate, dried fruit, nuts, icings, freeze-dried superfoods, honey, caramel, and even pieces of candy. Not to mention the different colors and shapes. All this tickles our desire to taste more variety.

The other aspect that emerges from the book is that the labels are anything but transparent

How many of us know what additives are hidden behind alphanumeric codes?
Would we know the difference between E325 and E199 by reading the label? What do we know about how the basic ingredients are processed, what transformations the raw material undergoes to reduce production costs?
Even the most careful consumer who reads the labels cannot know all the additive abbreviations by heart. And he would be surprised to know that the managers of large food companies do not consume their own products. Moss cites the case of Philip Morris, which produces not only cigarettes, but also the famous Oreo cookies. He is astonishing, but those who work at the top prefer to smoke a cigarette than open a pack of their cookies.

How evocation is used to trigger the feeling of hunger.

The Covid pandemic with its quarantines has caused many people to take refuge in food. The purchase of groceries, online and in physical stores, has significantly increased with the Coronavirus emergency. The food industries have exploited people’s sense of helplessness and frustration, focusing on the evocative power of childhood memories, of the home as a home, of loved ones.

It is no coincidence that recently we have often seen advertising formulas that evoke home-made, genuine food, tradition at the table, comfort, conviviality and care. It is, explains Moss, a trick to sell more, by acting on the emotional sphere that is closely linked to that of hunger. On the other hand, the areas of the so-called limbic brain are the same, both for emotions and for food. In short, neural patterns are based on a map of the common brain. And those who produce food know well.