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Hooked

Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions

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Hooked

Written by: Michael Moss
Narrated by: Scott Brick
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About this listen

 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Salt Sugar Fat comes a “gripping” (The Wall Street Journal) exposé of how the processed food industry exploits our evolutionary instincts, the emotions we associate with food, and legal loopholes in their pursuit of profit over public health.

“The processed food industry has managed to avoid being lumped in with Big Tobacco—which is why Michael Moss’s new book is so important.”—Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit

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.

Moss uses the latest research on addiction to uncover what the scientific and medical communities—as well as food manufacturers—already know: that food, in some cases, is even more addictive than alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs. Our bodies are hardwired for sweets, so food giants have developed fifty-six types of sugar to add to their products, creating in us the expectation that everything should be cloying; we’ve evolved to prefer fast, convenient meals, hence our modern-day preference for ready-to-eat foods. Moss goes on to show how the processed food industry—including major companies like Nestlé, Mars, and Kellogg’s—has tried not only to evade this troubling discovery about the addictiveness of food but to actually exploit it. For instance, in response to recent dieting trends, food manufacturers have simply turned junk food into junk diets, filling grocery stores with “diet” foods that are hardly distinguishable from the products that got us into trouble in the first place. As obesity rates continue to climb, manufacturers are now claiming to add ingredients that can effortlessly cure our compulsive eating habits.

A gripping account of the legal battles, insidious marketing campaigns, and cutting-edge food science that have brought us to our current public health crisis, Hooked lays out all that the food industry is doing to exploit and deepen our addictions, and shows us why what we eat has never mattered more. Diets, Nutrition & Healthy Eating Fitness, Diet & Nutrition Mental Health Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Nutrition Healthy Diet Thought-Provoking Health Food Addiction Food Business
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I really enjoyed this book but I just had finished fat,sugar, and salt the book from the same author and a lot of what he talks about is also talked about in that book. I do 100% recommend listening to it because it’s extremely interesting. But I would of liked to have more of clear divide between the two books

I really enjoyed this book but..

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While the text borrows some from Salt Sugar Fat, the reader is introduced to the future of the processed food industry. Genetic research paid for by Big Food is sure to create an even larger obesity problem. Of course, we know these companies are evil, and there are less shocking revelations than Salt Sugar Fat, Moss lays down fact after fact that can’t be ignored.

I’ve been on a decade long journey to improve my diet, after growing up on dunkaroos, cheese whiz, and lunchables in the 90s. I don’t want my children to grow up in a household that depends on quick and easy food. But being a parent is hard af, and I need constant reminders to follow this path. And so, I’m a gourmand for Michael Moss.

Same but different

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unsurprising result in the end, but interesting facts along the way. was fun to read

mostly unsurprising thesis

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