Food critics such as Michael Pollan argue that the American food industry has enriched itself by capitalizing on our cravings for sugar, fat, and salt. What Pollan names the "nutritional industrial complex" (a play on the phrase "military industrial complex" made famous by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1961) is a system of industrial-scale agriculture, food production, and marketing. This system makes processed junk-food products packed with mouth-pleasing quantities of sugar, fat, and salt, abundantly available at low prices. Many people have essentially become addicted to food products with a lot of calories but not very much nutritional value. Our eating patterns have resulted in epidemics of obesity, type-2 diabetes, heart disease, and other ailments. So much of the US public is now overweight that many scientists and doctors believe the nation has entered a public health emergency centered around poor nutrition.
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