Industrial diets—rich in processed, refined foods and beverages high in fat, salt and sugar and low in nutrient density—have proliferated in the U.S. and across the world. A new book titled Bite Back: People Taking on Corporate Food and Winning, edited by Saru Jayaraman and Kathryn De Master from the University of California, Berkeley, describes how the industrial diet and the systems supporting it emerged and how they retain dominance. The book features a chapter written by Wendi Gosliner, senior researcher and policy advisor at the Nutrition Policy Institute (NPI), in collaboration with Kristine Madsen, associate professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health and faculty director of the Berkeley Food Institute. Gosliner and Madsen describe how the food industry worked to exploit human biology and physiology by engineering hyper-palatable irresistible food and beverage products, flooding our physical and social environments with these products and cues to consume them, then using their profits to wield political power to reinforce the policies and systems that make these products less expensive and more convenient than healthier alternatives. The chapter also provides examples of how people can collaborate to counteract this dominance. The first edition book was released in May 2020 by University of California Press, and is recommended for college courses on food policy and food, environment & society.
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