‘The finest trick of the the Devil is to persuade you that he doesn’t exist’
(Charles Baudelaire)
Is the food industry guilty
of a similar trick with their ‘clean label campaign? In Joanna Blythman’s new
book, ‘Swallow This’ (a read that is fascinating and scary in equal measure)
she looks at whether the food industry is improving or simply rebranding.
When consumers became
fidgety about e-numbers, additives and food colourings the industry decided
they needed to react to this pressure. But
have they really improved our food? On
the face of it yes. Shoppers are
reassured by ‘no artificial colours or flavourings’, ‘no added sugar’ etc. Even the most conscientious consumer who
reads the small print on the back will no longer find a long list of e-numbers
or the dreaded trans fats listed, instead there is the more palatable ‘modified
starch’, ‘natural colourings’ etc.
However what is behind this
change, according to Joanna, is not
a more natural approach to food production but closer to a PR exercise. In
reality there is now just a different set of industrially produced ingredients, processing aids and enzymes
that are potentially no safer than the E-numbers that they replaced. Manufacturers do not appear interested in the
nutritional qualities of the food they produce.
Everything is about initial look or taste, of ‘appearing natural’ or
‘fresh-like’.
Even if there is nothing intrinsically
wrong with using these ingredients their existence is to make the process
cheaper and means there is lot less of real and nutritious ingredients like
butter, nuts, flour, dairy and meat. Processed food is not ‘food’ anymore but ‘complex
constructions of high-tech ingredients’.
Unfortunately there is no reassurance for
those of us who like to think we have escaped the problem by avoiding the
obviously heavily processed foods such as cheap biscuits and cakes, ready meals
and packet sauces. Joanna’s research covers
food that even the most diligent parent would have in their shopping basket – bread,
premium yoghurts, frozen vegetables, chicken, sliced meats and ready prepared
fruit and vegetables.
‘You might even boycott the most obvious
forms of nutritionally compromised, blatantly degraded offerings, and yet you
will still find it hard to avoid the 6,000 food additives – flavourings,
glazing agents, improvers, anti-caking agents, solvents, preservatives,
colourings, acids, emulsifiers, releasing agents, antioxidants, thickeners,
bleaching agents, sweeteners, chelators – and the undisclosed ‘processing
aids’, that are routinely employed behind the scenes of contemporary food
manufacture.’
Take yoghurts for example. Low fat yoghurts are incredibly popular with
families but how does a manufacturer make low fat yoghurt have the creamy
goodness we associate with full fat food?
Step forward ‘modified starch’.
It sounds innocent enough – we know there is starch in rice and
potatoes? However the industrial process used to create this ingredient mean it
is far removed from any starch you would find in natural food. It is a manufacturer’s dream - a cheap, bland
ingredient that sticks to the inside of your mouth tricking your brain into
thinking you have ingested fat. (I
happened to mention it to a friend whose husband works in the food industry –
little did I know that he was a starch technologist and she confirmed it is a
growing area of research precisely because it can be a great ‘filler’ in so
many foods)
What surprised me the most was what
manufacturers are allowed to use as a ‘processing aid’ and not include on the
label. How often have you picked up some ready prepped vegetables or a fruit
salad, assuming that they are in their natural state? Would you think that they had been treated
with enzymes to look fresher and firmer in their pack?
How about when you consciously avoid all the
pre-packaged biscuits and decide instead to treat yourself to something from an
in-store bakery, would you dream that it might have been pre-prepared months
before and then left frozen on shelf waiting to be finished off on site?
So why isn’t there more transparency in the
industry? During a Radio 4 discussion Alice
Cadman from Leatherhead Food Research was asked about the processes involved in
food production and here is what she thinks of consumer’s concerns:
“...it’s the food industry’s job to make
high quality very safe food and it’s a complicated area…I wouldn’t expect
consumers to understand the ingredients, I wouldn’t expect consumers to
understand the regulatory framework but I would expect them to trust the people
who are making the food for them because that’s what they do”
Hearing that I didn’t feel reassured I felt
patronised. Unfortunately for the food industry the age of people trusting
large institutions to serve their interests is long gone!
We mustn’t fall into the trap of thinking we
shouldn’t ask tough questions about the food industry because we are not clever
or scientific enough to understand the answer.
The whole point of regulatory bodies and labels should be to make
information accessible. We also shouldn’t be made to feel like we are being
‘difficult’ for wanting to know what is in our food!
More on this subject and practical advice for families wanting to eat clean in further posts, coming next week.
In
the meantime check out Joanna’s book, which is on Amazon (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007548338) and
in the shops (possibly not being stocked at supermarkets though!!)
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