Dined well, Dined what?

Dined well, Dined what?

These days when I pick my phone to order food. It gets me thinking how convenient ordering and eating has become. I can track my food at every instance, but if you think deep. We have no idea where the food is coming from, we have no idea where it was grown, what pesticides and fertilizers were used. The tracking which was so easy, in reality was not that easy.  

Remember, scanning all the shelves of supermarket and then picking up the perfect healthy packaged food. We think it is healthy because the packaging screams healthy. Have you ever looked at each ingredient and bought that without even understanding what these ingredients are? I have done that, multiple times.  When you look at ingredients section, you see words like permitted preservatives, artificial flavouring added. Then there are some big chemical names, of what I recall weren’t present in my chemistry textbook. Do we know what they really mean? How will they affect us? At that point we just trust the brand and buy it.  Beside ingredient section you will come across nutrient label, cryptic numbers only few can decrypt. Let’s pick almost everyone’s favourite. Nutella, a delicious way to start a day. So when they say there is 21 grams of sugar. I think very few of us convert it into tablespoon to check actually how much sugar we will be spreading on that slice of bread. So when you apply two tablespoons of Nutella on bread. You are eating close to 6 tablespoons of sugar. That is just too much sugar, we probably won’t be eating nutella that often had they mentioned it on nutrient label. Nutella is just one example, favourite of course, all these nutrient labels are designed to mislead.  May be next time you convert the grams into tablespoon, you will be surprised on number of food items you will have to sacrifice.

Processed food have only existed for around 150 years now, but today it is hard to imagine life without it. When you walk into a super market. What do you see?

On one shelf you will see ultra-processed, highly calorific food for the best mouth feel ever.

On the very next shelf you have zero cholesterol, 100 % natural, low fat food. This shelf is for the people made fat by previous shelf. There is a deep symbiotic relationship between these two shelves. Absolutely none of the shelves care about your health. It is like that Soda Company telling you “I am sorry I made you fat, but now that you love it, try diet soda”

Have you ever stood in the line outside food counter during movie interval and thought to yourself why the hell are they giving such big glass of soda? I just wanted a few sips, but you eventually ended up buying that. This is how these companies cash in every opportunity they can. Whenever you buy a packaged food the reward is going to these companies and not to the farmers. More the food is processed, higher is the profit. Processed foods are packed with high amounts of carbs and sugars. Food producers love processed foods full of carbs and sugars. Why? Because sugars and carbs are highly addictive, it is easy to sell something that you are addictive to and hence make more profit. It is a vicious cycle as you can see.

There was a time when hunger was a chief nutrient problem, now WHO has declared obesity a global epidemic surpassing hunger. We have come so far and gone nowhere.  The farm system has turned into a calorific conveyor belt. Now we produce massive amount of quantities which is very cheap (since these companies are cashing in subsidy given by governments to farmers). To that cheap product, add great marketing, attractive packaging, and some fun brand characters. There is a KFC ad campaign showing a family in which the father was told by the mother that “KFC has 0 grams of trans fat now.” The father, in the presence of children, shouts, “Yeah baby! Whoooo!!” and then begins eating the fried chicken. Does such an ad imply it is now fine to eat fried chicken and potentially increase consumption in ways that contribute to obesity (there is no calorie advantage of switching one fat for another)?

Being someone who enjoys marketing.  It breaks my heart to see how we are distorting the facts, how the marketing campaigns are fooling us all, that fun brand character is in reality an evil, how we prefer sales over safety of consumer.  We have made a business model which always ends up choosing its financial wellbeing over physical health of consumer. At the center of this issue is whether industry can be trusted to make changes that benefit the public good and can be responsible with the accompanying marketing?  The answer doesn’t really seem positive. Every time I put that packet of Maggi in my basket I think to myself “I know it is bad, it can’t be that bad, it is Nestle! For God sake, they make baby food”. It has been in our lives for years now. We all have that late night hostel Maggi story, that day when there was absolutely nothing in your cupboard and Maggi came to rescue. How can I cross that aisle without picking it up?

An addictive product and trust is what it takes to make us come back to it.

How did the food company get so better at fooling us? Somebody must have inspired them?

When cigarette sales plummeted due to harmful effects of smoking. In 1954 the tobacco industry paid to publish the “Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers” in hundreds of U.S. newspapers. It stated that the public's health was the industry's concern above all others and promised a variety of good-faith changes. What followed were decades of deceit and actions that cost millions of lives. The good faith changes were filtered cigarette which originally had asbestos in them. Isn’t this similar to the claims made by food industry like KFC saying it has 0 grams of trans fat now?

The food industry will go through the same battles and regulation that its influencer went through. Of course it is going to be more difficult to regulate food industry because it’s far more big and complex. Until we fight it out for transparency, healthier products and higher standards. Until morality wins over money. Let’s just make better choices at super market. There will be some aisles that will look you into eye and lie. Just walk past them

Prerna Mishra