| Kessler begins with the introduction of the term "hyperpalatable foods" - foods that are tastier and more irresistible than anything found in nature. In fact, I found that there's a stark difference between foraged foods and domesticated foods (for example, Bing or Rainier cherries are MUCH bigger and sweeter than wild black cherries). But when we're dealing with domesticated foods, we're still dealing with something that evolved in nature in its unrefined form.
The problem is when you go from sweet corn to high fructose corn syrup: from a natural form of food to something that never existed in nature. Our bodies are programmed to favor sweet, salty, and fatty foods due to an evolutionary need to pile on the calories when they were available to avoid starvation. But just because the highly refined junk that's available (and ubiquitous!) today never existed in nature doesn't mean that our evolved favoring of sugar, salt, and fat turns off when we eat those "hyperpalatable" foods. We just keep eating and eating and eating.
What happens to those who overeat (which is a large percentage of us - myself included!) is that we get conditioned to overeat these hyperpalatable foods. Kessler calls it conditioned hypereating. Maybe the first time you saw the Golden Arches, you thought, "Hmm, am I hungry today? Yes! I am. I'll get a burger." Over time, you become conditioned to cues - the sight of the Golden Arches, the smell of McDonald's fries, etc. At a certain point it becomes automatic. See McDonalds, eat a burger. Or eat an entire supersized value meal. You don't even wonder if you're hungry before doing it. You just act automatically as you are conditioned to do by those cues.
Furthermore, whereas hyperpalatable food may be possible to resist before you've taken a bite of it, it's MUCH harder to resist it AFTER you've taken a bite. Kessler says that but I find it to be true in my own life with a particular brand of coconut milk ice cream I love. I can't buy a pint because I eat the whole thing in two sittings. There's no such thing as "just one spoonful" or even "just one serving." But I can resist it BEFORE I've taken a taste, by not buying it at all.
My favorite part of the book is the section in which he exposes how restaurants actually make their food, and why it's so difficult to eat normal portions. He's not referring to fine dining, but rather to places like T.G.I. Fridays, Chili's, or Applebees. It's one thing if there's a chef in the kitchen who is cooking food from scratch using similar ingredients and methods to what you could use (if you had the skills) in your own kitchen. It's entirely another thing altogether when the food is engineered to be irresistible and constructed via industrial processes long before it gets to the restaurant. One of Kessler's examples is Cinnabon, citing how much work went into creating the perfect cinnamon bun.
So what do we do about this conditioned hypereating and the public health disaster it's become? Kessler gives advice for individuals who wish to curb their overeating, and I find his advice to be incredibly helpful, at least in part. He doesn't identify good or bad foods, but instead relies on his readers to identify which foods they overeat and focus on those. But assuming readers DO know how to eat and they are in touch with which foods cause them to totally lose control, his advice meshes very well with what I've experienced in my own life.
Kessler says you should rely on rules instead of willpower. Instead of saying "I oughta eat less sweets," make the rule of "No dessert." When your brain knows that something is not an option for you, it's MUCH easier to resist whatever that thing is. I find this to be true in my flirtations with veganism. If I tell myself I am vegan and I cannot have ANY animal products whatsoever, I do fine with it. I miss my lattes and gelato and all kinds of junk that I thoroughly enjoy, but it's not a problem of self control. Once I tell myself that I'm not vegan and I'm a vegetarian who tries to go easy on the dairy and eggs, it's all over. Lattes, yogurt, cookies, scones, muffins, cake, ice cream, cheese, you name it. If I can get in my hands on it, it goes in my mouth. I don't like the extremist nature of veganism but as Kessler says, rules work far better than willpower. In other words, relying on willpower to be a near-vegan is not going to work for me.
I am hesitant to criticize Kessler because his book does an excellent job in what he set out to do. His focus is solely on individuals, not the role of the government. But one cannot ignore the fact that he WAS the commissioner of the FDA, and he is one of the best public figures in the country to speak up on this topic. He's shown that food companies exploit their customers, to the detriment of the customers' health. We all know this is a public health epidemic. When business is being predatory on such a large scale, it's time for government to step in. Yet Kessler calls for very little government action.
I'm pleased to say that Kessler calls for two of the same measures I call for in my own book - nutrition labeling on chain restaurant menus and labeling of added sugars on packaged foods. I wonder about the added sugars because the Center for Science in the Public Interest has petitioned the FDA for years to require labeling of added sugars on packaged foods, and the FDA has thus far rejected their petition. Was Kessler in charge when that happened, and did he have a hand in denying the petition? Has he only just now seen the light? It would be fabulous to have him weigh in to the Obama administration, to get the ball rolling so that we CAN have labeling of added sugars.
All of that said, I find it odd that Kessler admits to his readers that it's OK to feel angry that they are surrounded by so many hyperpalatable foods and cues to make them overeat - yet he barely mentions a role for the government beyond labeling. Given that he's identified how humans are conditioned to overeat, I would think that a first step would be to make sure that our school lunch programs are not playing a role in conditioning children to overeat.
I don't think it would be wise or right to take away the freedom of individuals to eat what they want, nor the right of businesses to make money, but that right should end at the point where businesses are preying upon consumers. It's the same story we've seen in other areas of business, with initiatives in the Congress to curb predatory lending practices and to establish a public health insurance option that the private companies will have to compete with to limit their abuses as well. Predatory practices by food companies should also be examined by the government, and I'd love to see Kessler use the research in his book to make a case for it. |
