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Michael Moss certainly claims a lot in his new book. I have only read an online article about it, and I'm highly suspicious of the claims made there, especially terms like "vanishing caloric density" and "designer sodium". Is there any truth to his claims?

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    if it sounds too good to be true... No doubt he or his sponsors will soon come out and sell some overpriced "designer salt" that causes "miracle weight loss" or whatever other miraculous health benefits they want to have people pay a lot of money for.
    – jwenting
    Commented Mar 27, 2013 at 14:37
  • @jwenting read the article, it's the opposite of what you think :)
    – Aleksei Averchenko
    Commented Mar 27, 2013 at 14:50
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    @jwenting Well you can make low sodium salt by mixing in some of salt's slightly bitter nephew, potassium chloride. There's also been a lot of research into using our current understanding of nanotech to make healthy food taste rich, like for instance low-fat nanostructured mayonnaise, so maybe they came up with something similar for salt. It's plausible, with science!
    – Tacroy
    Commented Mar 27, 2013 at 16:13
  • Please identify the claim you wish us to look at. Is the question "Does someone have a product that is known as 'designer sodium'?"
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Commented Mar 27, 2013 at 22:56
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    I just saw Michael Moss on Daily Show. Seemed really suspect and I was honestly surprised by the lack of reaction, there, here, and on the web in general. The entire article you posted was somewhat... leaning... with stuff like "First you find a product that sells, then you find the right cheap ingredients to make it profitable" (in bold titles) as if that was both abnormal and abhorrent. No mention throughout indicates how this might harm, it's left to ambiguity. like this "designer salt", which appears to be designed as the salt intolerant equivalent of Aspartame apparently. How is that bad?
    – Omnomnomnom
    Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 2:19

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The question is currently too broad, so I am addressing only following claim:

The Frito-Lay executives also spoke of the company’s ongoing pursuit of a "designer sodium," which they hoped, in the near future, would take their sodium loads down by 40 percent.

"Designer Sodium" doesn't appear to be a widely used jargon term (based on Google searches) but clearly refers to coming up with new ways of presenting table salt (i.e. Sodium Chloride) in their products.

For example, their web-site explains that their Frito-Lay chips contain less salt than the taste would suggest:

the salt in a Frito-Lay chip is sprinkled on the surface, rather than baked in, so it is one of the first tastes your tongue detects. This is why Frito-Lay chips taste saltier than some other common foods.

The 40% figure is more ambitious, but consistent with other public messages from Frito-Lay, where they use the term "designer salt".

For example, from 2010

the mad scientists at PepsiCo are trying to do them one better. They’re about to start making a new “designer salt” for their Lay’s brand potato chips that they claim will reduce the amount of sodium you consume without losing any of that great sodium taste.

The new salt, which is still in the test and development stages, is probably two years away from hitting the nationwide market. It’s just one portion of PepsiCo’s long-term plan to make healthier products. They announced today that they hope to reduce sodium by an average of 25% over the range of their products in the next five years.

Are they actually researching this stuff? Well, if patents are a measure, yes. Here is just a sample.

Conclusion

Michael Moss (as cited by Mother Jones) might have got the jargon slightly wrong, and might have exaggerated the figure by a bit (or he might have got it 100% correct, and the Frito-Lay story has changed slightly), but essentially his reporting was consistent with the Frito-Lay press-releases.

Frito-Lay have evidence that they are researching the areas that they are claiming, and some of the "designer salt" products are already in the marketplace. Whether they achieve their 40% reduction goals is something that time will tell.

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  • The last patent in the list is for "A low sodium salt composition suitable as a table salt product which comprises: a. 30 to 90 parts NaCl; b. 5 to 70 parts of a non-gritty bulking agent; and c. 0 to 40 parts of a binder; wherein the bulking agent is coated with the NaCl" - which sounds like it is probably the "designer salt".
    – RedGrittyBrick
    Commented Mar 28, 2013 at 10:14

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