Trinity University is proud to announce that the 2016 Reading TUgether selection is Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Moss. Each year, the University community shares a joint reading experience through the Reading TUgether program, where students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to all read a single book. Salt, Sugar, Fat investigates the processed food industry, its marketing objectives, and how companies like Capri Sun, Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay, Kraft, Nestlé, and Oreos have come to dominate the American diet.
Katherine Hewitt, Trinity coordinator of wellness services, says Salt, Sugar, Fat allows the Trinity community to reflect on personal health and the decisions that we make every day as consumers. As a wellness professional, Hewitt appreciated how Moss did not judge consumers for making unhealthy eating choices, instead structuring the book in an informative way.
"Moss framed the book so that it focuses on education and how we can utilize history, science, and data to make more informed decisions about food," Hewitt says. "For new students arriving on campus and for those coming back, I stress variety as much as possible and for students to get out of their comfort zones and to explore new, healthy foods."
Additionally, Hewitt says students should make every attempt to share meals together, a simple act that is important for social wellness. Moss reveals in his book how Americans have slowly stopped eating meals with one another, a trend Hewitt encourages students to fight. Even with heavy course loads and active schedules, Hewitt urges students to bond over meals and to take the time to think about their personal health.
On Wednesday, August 24 at 7 p.m., Moss will deliver the Reading TUgether keynote lecture in Laurie Auditorium. This presentation is free and open to the public.
In recent years, Reading TUgether books have included The Circle by Dave Eggers, Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong by Raymond Bonner, and The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. First-year Trinity students are required to read the Reading TUgether selection and use the book to complete an annotated bibliography before the onset of the fall semester.
Carlos Anchondo is a writer and editor for University Marketing and Communications. He is a 2014 graduate of Trinity and can be found at @cjanchondo or at canchond@trinity.edu.
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