In a lawsuit two decades ago, Michael Szymanczyk, chief executive of tobacco giant Philip Morris, was asked how he defined addiction. He replied, “I would define addiction as a repetitive behavior that some people find difficult to quit.”
Szymanczyk was talking about smoking. But a thought-provoking new book by investigative journalist and best-selling author Michael Moss argues that tobacco executives’ definition of addiction may apply to our relationship with another set of products that Philip Morley has been selling and manufacturing for decades: refined foods.
In his new book, Hooked, Moss explores the science behind addiction and attempts to demonstrate that Food companies go to great lengths to orchestrate the manufacture of processed foods to hijack the reward circuits in our brains, causing us to overeat and contributing to the global spread of obesity and chronic disease. Processed foods such as cheeseburgers, potato chips and ice cream are not only addictive, but even more addictive than alcohol, tobacco and drugs, Moss said. Drawing on internal industry documents and interviews with industry insiders, the book argues that over the past few decades, some food companies have realized the addictive nature of their products and taken extreme measures to avoid being held accountable, such as halting important research on sugary foods and pushing legislation to stop people from suing food companies for damages.
Another callous and selfish move by food companies, Moss writes, was to buy up a series of popular diet food companies in large numbers in the late 1970s so they could profit from our weight loss, which we had gained by eating their products. Processed food giant Heinz bought WeightWatchers in 1978 for $72 million. Unilever, which sold Klondike ice cream and Ben & Jerry’s, bought SlimFast in 2000 for $2.3 billion. In 2010, the private equity firm that owns Cinnabon and Carvel Ice Cream acquired Atkins Nutritionals, which sells low-carb chocolate bars, shakes and snacks. Most of these diet brands have since been sold to other parent companies.
“The food industry prevented us from litigating addiction claims in court; they began to control the science in a bad way and took control of the diet industry,” Moss said in an interview. “I’ve been navigating the dark side of the processed food industry for 10 years, and I’m deeply shocked at the level of deviousness of their strategy to exploit not only our instincts, but our attempts to control addiction.”
Moss is a former New York Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. He first touched on the processed food industry in 2013 with the publication of Salt Sugar Fat. The book explains how companies can formulate junk food ingredients to reach the “bliss point” and make them irresistible, taking a page out of the tobacco industry’s playbook for marketing these products. However, after writing the book, Moss was not convinced that processed foods were addictive.
“When I wrote Salt Sugar Fat, I tried to avoid the word addictive,” he says. “I thought it was completely ridiculous. I could hardly imagine comparing Twinkies to cocaine drugs.”
But he was swayed when he delved into the science that shows how processed foods affect the brain. A key factor that affects the addictive nature of a substance and whether we compulsively ingest it is the rate at which the substance excites the brain. The faster it stimulates our reward circuits, the greater its impact. That’s why smoking crack cocaine has a stronger effect than inhaling powder cocaine through the nose, and why smoking cigarettes produces a more rewarding sensation than wearing nicotine patches: smoking shrinks the Time it takes for the drug to enter the brain.
But, Moss writes, no addictive drug can excite the reward circuits in our brains as quickly as our favorite foods. “Cigarette smoke takes 10 seconds to excite the brain, but a little sugar on the tongue takes only slightly more than half a second – 600 milliseconds, to be exact – to do so,” he writes . “That’s nearly 20 times faster than a cigarette.”
This gives us new insight into the term “fast food. He adds, “With its speed in milliseconds and its addictive power, nothing stimulates the brain faster than processed foods.”
Even people in the tobacco industry have noticed the powerful appeal of processed foods, Moss explained. In the 1980s, Philip Morris acquired Kraft and General Foods, making it the largest manufacturer of processed foods in the United States, with products such as Kool-Aid, Cocoa Pebbles, Capri Sun and Oreo ) cookies. But Steven C. Parrish, the company’s former legal counsel and vice president, admits that he was troubled by the fact that it was easier for him to quit the company’s cigarettes than its chocolate chip cookies. “A bag of chips or Doritos nachos or Oreos is dangerous to have in front of me,” he told Moss. “I would even avoid opening a bag of Oreos because instead of just eating one or two, I would eat half the bag.”
As lawsuits against tobacco companies grew in the 1990s, one of the tobacco industry’s defenses was that cigarettes wouldn’t be any more addictive than Twinkies. It may have been right. Moss writes that Philip Morris regularly surveys the public to gather legal and marketing intelligence, and that a special 1988 survey asked people to name what they thought was addictive and then rated it on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the most addictive.
“Smoking scored 8.5, almost on par with heroin,” Moss wrote. “But binge drinking with a score of 7.3 was a close second, scoring higher than beer, sedatives and sleeping pills. The statistic was used to support the company’s argument that cigarettes may not be completely innocent, but are less powerful than potato chips and are manageable.”
But processed foods are not tobacco, and many people, including some experts, deny they are addictive. Part of this reluctance, Moss says, is a misunderstanding of addiction. First, a substance doesn’t have to appeal to everyone to be addictive. Studies show that most people who drink alcohol or snort cocaine don’t become dependent. Nor is everyone who smokes or uses painkillers addicted. Similarly, symptoms of addiction may vary from person to person and from drug to drug. Painful withdrawal used to be seen as a sign of addiction. However, we know that some addictive drugs (such as cocaine) do not meet this definition because they do not cause the “painful physical disorder” that withdrawal from barbiturates and other addictive drugs can cause.
The American Psychiatric Association now lists 11 criteria for diagnosing so-called substance use disorders that range from mild to severe, depending on how many symptoms a person exhibits. One of the symptoms is addiction, the inability to quit even when trying to do so, and continued use of the substance even when it causes harm. People who have trouble controlling their intake of processed foods can try simple strategies to overcome daily cravings, such as taking a walk, calling a friend or eating some healthy alternatives like nuts, Moss said. But for some people, more extreme measures may be necessary.
“It depends on what level you fall into,” he says. “I know people who get out of control when they don’t touch sugar. They drive to the grocery store, and by the time they get Home, there’s candy wrappers all over the car. For them, complete abstinence is the solution.”
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