Michael Moss Quotes

Every year, the average American eats as much as 33 pounds of cheese. That's up to 60,000 calories and 3,100 grams of saturated fat. So why do we eat so much cheese? Mainly it's because the government is in cahoots with the processed food industry. And instead of responding in earnest to the health crisis, they've spent the past 30 years getting people to eat more. This is the story of how we ended up doing just that.

Why are kids being inundated with food that is not good for them, when we're suffering from an obesity crisis? Is the U.S. government talking out of both sides of its mouth, promoting bad food while telling us not to eat it?

Look at the average American diet: ice cream, butter, cheese, whole milk, all this fat. People don't realize how much of this stuff you get by the end of the day. High blood pressure is from all this high-fat eating.

There is a deliberate effort to undermine food culture to sell us processed food. The family meal is a challenge if you're General Mills or Kellogg or one of these companies, or McDonald's, because the family meal is usually one thing shared.

The way we allow children to be advertised to is shocking. Eating is a learned behavior, and we've made these kids sitting ducks for all the bad messages about industrialized food. The fact that we allow that to go on is horrifying.

Making changes in the fast food that makes up such a significant part of the American diet, even if the numbers aren't impressive, will have important health up sides.

Families are struggling against a tide of junk information on junk food.

The main influence on a child's palate may no longer be a parent but a series of food manufacturers whose products - despite their illusion of infinite choice - deliver a monotonous flavour hit, quite unlike the more varied flavours of traditional cuisine.

Let's face it: so much of what we consume is not driven by knowledge but by basic craving and impulse. The process of what we eat starts in our heads. And no one is more in our heads than a food industry that spends billions of dollars in marketing its message in every means possible.

I care a lot about big food and everyone's right to healthy, nutritious food and what's caused obesity in America and obesity in children in America.

People need help to change the way they eat... this is what government is for in my opinion.... We should make food an issue for everyone who runs for office.

The growing attention Americans are paying to what they put into their mouths has touched off a new scramble by the processed-food companies to address health concerns.

The sad thing is, when it comes to diet, is that even when well-intentioned Feds try to do right by us, they fail. Either they're outvoted by puppets of agribusiness, or they are puppets of agribusiness.

We would be a much healthier culture if the government had never told us how to eat.

That is the one single word that the food industry hates: 'addiction.' They much prefer words like 'crave-ability' and 'allure.'

Unfortunately, the food industry has not yet faced this situation and begun taking measures to avoid exploiting our weakness for not knowing when we have had enough.

Gluten intolerance and celiac disease are direct results of American agriculture policy and, specifically, the government's wading into the food arena.

I don't eat vegetables. I only eat food like cheeseburgers, Spam, hot dogs and pizza.

In the 21st century our tastes buds, our brain chemistry, our biochemistry, our hormones and our kitchens have been hijacked by the food industry.

Today there are not even enough fruits and vegetables in this country to allow all Americans to follow the government guidelines to eat five to nine servings a day.

The playing field is anything but level when you walk into the grocery store. So much government subsidy goes into processed foods. Even when you're well-meaning as a parent or a shopper for yourself, you can't help but be pulled toward the highly processed food.

The fact is: America's obsession with meat and dairy has pretty much destroyed our sense of taste. The average burger and milkshake meal is so overloaded with fat, salt and sugar that it has numbed our taste buds to virtually anything else.

It's almost seems as though there's a battle going on between the public and all the fast-food establishments, and, believe me, I think it's very tasty food.

I am very concerned about junk food in the schools.

We in America have gotten addicted to cheap food. The result of that is antibiotic-laden fish, foods that are bred to be portable.