After reading the link posted on our blog and some PR from Rosie who had attended the previous seminar I attended SFU’s Café Scientifique this past Wednesday. The topic was Big Food Companies: Friend or Foe in the Fight Against Obesity and Chronic Disease? It is held at Surrey Central Brewing, which was a very welcome change from the stark SFU classrooms. The way Café Scientifique works is that there is a presenter or two who present a topic for discussion, alongside a mediator who opens, closes, and sometimes rebuts or adds fodder to the discussion. After about half an hour of the presenters and moderator speaking the microphone is given to the floor and all in attendance are able to ask questions, create dialogue, and comment on what is happening in the discussion.
I greatly enjoyed the interactive style of the Café and the topic was of great interest to me. The first presenter was Dr. Diane Finegood, an SFU professor in the Biomedical Physiology and Kinesiology department who work with the Chronic Disease Systems Modeling Lab. The second presenter works for the BCRFA (British Columbia Restaurant and Foodservices Association, whose name I did not catch. The moderator (another name and title I missed) started off the discussion by likening Big Food to Cigarette Companies and placing the blame for our society’s current struggle with obesity and chronic disease squarely in their hands. Dr. Finegood’s presentation shifted the blame from big food and onto the individual. She believes that obesity and chronic disease are far to complex an issue to hold any one entity culpable. The representative from the BCRFA spent his time going over challenges faced by the food and beverage industry in providing healthy choices (lack of demand, taste profiles, small or independent suppliers) and all the ways that big food are working towards making food healthier (labeling and health information initiatives) and restriction of trans fat used in foods by its members to name a few.
I will be the first to admit that I came to this session already with the mindset of big food being the bad guy. After reading many books on the topic, such as “Food Politics” by Marion Nestle, “The End of Overeating” by David Kessler, and “In Defense of Food” by Michael Pollan, it becomes readily apparent that big food is big business, and the bottom line will always be money before health. That being said I did come away with some new ideas or food for thought.
Dr. Finegood presented as interesting view on some of the greater effects of the prevalence of big food in our culture’s day to day life. Not only is consuming more and more convenience foods or foods outside the home making our society ever more prone to obesity and chronic disease, it is also contributing to a “deskilling of peoples behavior” when it comes to cooking and food preparation. Big food is food that is researched, engineered, and marketed to be as hyperpalatable as possible to the consumer. Studies have shown these designer foods to be highly mentally and physically addictive, and considering the millions of dollars that going into new food creation there must be validity to this argument. Dr. Finegood’s deskilling comment made me think about how addictive the idea of not cooking or preparing food must also be for the consumer. This deskilling through the big foods capitalization on value added foods from tv dinners to pre chopped vegetables creates a of skill based dependence in already vulnerable populations. The less people know about cooking and preparing foods the less chance that they will cook and prepare their own foods. Big food is creating multi faceted dependencies and leaving consumers with fewer and fewer abilities to make different choices.
The BCRFA representative really worked hard to put a positive spin on all aspect of out of the home food, big or small. Many of the initiatives he spoke of were positive, but it is always easier to talk of things that could or might be happening that what are current practices. When I asked him how criteria for food labeling and nutritional information would be set he did everything he could to avoid my question and make the response more positive. I don’t blame him; food labeling is a hot topic right now. Front of package labeling has been getting a lot of media attention in the United States currently as the FDA attempts to create and police the labeling of food. While more readily available information about the food we eat might seem like a great idea, unfortunately it is often used by big food to promote the good qualities and often un or sub substantiated benefits of their products while masking the undesirable information. For example, it’s great that a product has whole grains, is organic, or has anti oxidants, but if the first ingredient it sugar and it contains trans fats no amount anti oxidants or organic ingredients will make it a health food. This was my concern about food labeling in British Columbia, but it went unaddressed during the response from the BCRFA speaker. I was also wary of many of the statistics he was using. His association uses largely survey based information to determine their policies and procedures, which is challenging because people often misjudge or are unaware of what they are eating. When he told the group that the average person ate food from outside the home less than twice a week, I really stopped to question the validity of the information. I don’t know if I can think of anyone, myself included, who doesn’t grab a coffee from a coffee shop, stop for some lunch, go out for dinner with a friend, order takeout, or pick up a pre made dinner more than once a week. That statistic seems quite inadequate to account for the amount of money made by the food and beverage industry and the resulting health fall out in our society.
One of his points I did find very valid, however, was that there are not a lot of people asking for healthier options, or that are happy to sacrifice portion, price point, or taste in exchange for a healthier meal. If this is the case, (which I suspect it is) then why would Big Food be supplying it? Even myself, who often wishes there were more healthy options, may be part of the problem because instead of asking big food to make changes, I simply avoid eating at or from establishments who don’t already make the food I like to eat and then complain that they aren’t doing enough. If we want big food to change, we need to take some onus and demand for it. This includes asking more of big food and asking our government to put more controls in place. Big food is about bottom dollar, and what people want is where the money is, the challenge lies in making people want and ask for healthier foods.
All in all I greatly enjoyed the evening and appreciate the chance to discuss and think about food and health in new ways. I think this series Café Scientifique is presenting is doing a great job of getting people interested in health and making peoples feel as if they have a voice when it comes matters that effect us personally, locally, and globally. Just a little food for thought.
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