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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Moss chronicles the food industry's quest for our dollars, at the cost of our health.

It turns out that salt, sugar, and fat are not just mere flavorings that make our food taste good. They are key to creating crisp crackers, golden brown bread crusts, and shelf-stable foods that last the months it takes to get from factory to dinner table. Fat makes food feel rich in the mouth, and combined with sugar, is virtually undetectable to our brains. Eliminating or altering the amounts of any of these key ingredients changes the food in ways consumers won't buy.

Moss’s interviews with food industry chemists and researchers are enlightening. These interviews -- combined with documents obtained from the FDA, USDA, and the food companies – paint an unflattering portrait of effective marketing strategies and the drive for profits at the expense of consumers’ health. Until people start making time for cooking food from scratch at home, and until they are willing to pay a little extra for fresh whole foods, I don't know that all this research will make a bit of difference. Sure, convenience foods are cheaper per calorie. But having more calories is not a problem in this nation. Whole foods are cheaper by weight, but they take time to prepare and don't have the same ratios of salt, sugar, and fat that we've become accustomed to.

And healthcare costs keep going up because of all the diseases related to these food-like substances: diabetes, heart disease, cancer. What a mess.