Hooked

Author Michael Moss
Narrator Scott Brick
Publisher Ebury Publishing
Publish Date 4 March 2021
Run Time 9 hours
Format Audio
Genre Cultural studies: food and society, Health, illness and addiction: social aspects, Popular science, Science: general issues, Society and Social Sciences.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

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 the shocking ways 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 and ways to exploit our evolutionary preference for fast, ready-to-eat foods. Moss goes on to show how the processed food industry -- including major companies like Nestlé, Mars, and Kellogg's -- has not only tried to hide the addictiveness of food but to actually exploit it. 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.

© Michael Moss 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Critics Review

Excellent… blends investigative reporting, science and foodie writing to argue that the processed food industry is no different from tobacco companies

New York Times

Chilling … succeed[s] brilliantly in evidencing the systematic venality of corporate junk food and drink interests

The Guardian

Gripping

Wall Street Journal

Hooked shows how food manufacturers have taken advantage of our habits, our biology, our psychological quirks, and our ignorance to transform foods into addictive substances. He takes us into laboratories and courtrooms, kitchens and legislatures-and shows us how we can win our freedom back

Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit

Michael Moss delivers again with a deep, well-written investigation into food addiction and mass food production. With so many companies competing for our attention, dollars, and stomachs, it’s more important than ever to educate ourselves about food and arm ourselves against efforts to get us hooked. This is a very important read for anyone who cares about their health

Sylvia Tara, author of THE SECRET LIFE OF FAT

No one has done more to reveal the intentional and underhanded ways in which food companies manipulate our desires and eating habits than Michael Moss. In Hooked, he shows how these ongoing crimes must be challenged and stopped. A must-read for anyone who cares about food, general well-being, and justice

Mark Bittman, author of ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, JUNK

Hooked is smoothly written, with just the right amount of fascinating scientific detail

NPR

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Moss is a powerhouse when it comes to research and analysis, and much like his contemporary Michael Lewis, he possesses the ability to maintain a solid narrative arc … He explores the often devious and potentially dangerous ways that manufacturers manipulate foods to trigger addictive behavior, spark sense memories of foods from our childhoods, and treat addiction and dependence as a corporate strategy … Another clear-eyed inquiry into the companies that feed us, hook us, and leave us wanting more

Kirkus Reviews

Moss brings the same keen-eyed, lucid reporting to Hooked, illuminating the science of addiction to show that processed food is a drug … If knowledge is power, then Hooked provides the facts we need to free ourselves from remaining unwitting conspirators in Big Food’s ruse

San Francisco Chronicle

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