| Summary: | Around the world, obesity levels are rising - more people are now overweight than undernourished. Journalist Jacques Peretti explores the profitable ways eating habits have been revolutionised over the last 40 years. Travelling to the USA, he learns about a sweetener championed in the 1970s to make use of the excess corn grown by farmers but now known to interfere with the hormone that controls appetite. He reveals the history of 'supersizing', a concept that boosted both food consumption and profits, and speaks with industry professionals about the introduction of value meals, king-size snacks and multi-buy promotions. Examining assumptions about what is and is not healthy, Peretti also explores developments in dietary advice and the power of marketing and advertising on the choices we make. Peretti travels to America to investigate the story of high-fructose corn syrup. The sweetener was championed in the US in the 1970s by Richard Nixon's agriculture secretary Earl Butz to make use of the excess corn grown by farmers. Cheaper and sweeter than sugar, it soon found its way into almost all processed foods and soft drinks. HFCS is not only sweeter than sugar, it also interferes with leptin, the hormone that controls appetite, so once you start eating or drinking it, you don't know when to stop. Endocrinologist Robert Lustig was one of the first to recognise the dangers of HFCS but his findings were discredited at the time. Meanwhile a US Congress report blamed fat, not sugar, for the disturbing rise in cardio-vascular disease and the food industry responded with ranges of 'low fat', 'heart healthy' products in which the fat was removed - but the substitute was yet more sugar. Meanwhile, in 1970s Britain, food manufacturers used advertising campaigns to promote the idea of snacking between meals. Outside the home, fast food chains offered clean, bright premises with tempting burgers cooked and served with a very un-British zeal and efficiency. Twenty years after the arrival of McDonalds, the number of fast food outlets in Britain had quadrupled.
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