The battle between processed food and real food continues to rage on and fuel the public sphere of eating an unhealthy diet. Charlotte Biltekoff argues that the mistrust of the industry and misunderstanding of the public’s concerns converge in her new book, Real Food, Real Facts: Processed Food and the Politics of Knowledge.
Evan Kleiman: It’s great to talk to you, especially in this moment when real facts of any kind seem to be on the table for discussion. Historically, how have we defined food using the monikers of “good” and “bad”?
Charlotte Biltekoff: I appreciate you asking that as a historical question because it already gets at my answer, which is that our ideas about good and bad food do change over time, and it’s not just because of new knowledge or insights or understandings that come out of the lab, say, out of nutrition science or food science. Our ideas about good food and bad food are really culturally shaped, and they have a really long and interesting history. And certainly how people interact with food, as good or bad, becomes an important part of their identity, their sense of themselves as certain kinds of people, including as certain kinds of moral people, responsible people, good subjects.
How we choose food in relationship to these changing ideas about good and bad food is very socially fraught. It’s a big deal. It has a lot to do with social status and who we are and want to be.
You consider that there are two ways of thinking about processed food, which you refer to as the real food frame, and the real facts frame. Can you explain that?
Yeah, so the real food frame is a way of thinking about processed food that I think most of your listeners are probably very familiar with. This is the idea that comes from a lot of different directions, a lot of different concerns converging around processed food and raising concerns about its health effects for individuals and population level, health effects, the effects of processed food for the environment, for the welfare of animals and workers In the food system, and concerns about the technologies involved in processing food. All of this comes together to create an idea of good food in the early 21st Century, that good food is real and that processed food is something to be avoided, if at all possible. Also, for many people, this converges with an idea that the food system needs to be changed or reformed in important ways.
The real facts frame is a reaction to the real food frame. It’s the terminology that I use to describe how the food industry responds to the real food frame. From the perspective of many experts in the food industry, particularly those with scientific backgrounds and ways of thinking about the world, the problem with processed food isn’t the food itself or its effects on people’s health or the environment. They see the problem as the public’s lack of understanding of the science and technology involved in bringing us our food — and what they see is irrational fears, misguided concerns about the food system. From their point of view, the problem isn’t processed food, it’s people’s misunderstandings and what is to be done about it isn’t to change the food system, but rather to inform and educate the public so that they can have fewer concerns and be more willing to accept and consume the products of the processed food system.
Experts see the problem as the public’s lack of understanding about the technology involved in food production, says professor Charlotte Biltekoff. Photo courtesy of the author.
What role does communication play in this discourse between the food industry and the public, in light of the prevalent mistrust and the knowledge deficits of science and technology?
The communication that I study, in particular, is communication that’s put together by trade associations. Those are like big organizations that aggregate the power of food industry actors and seek to shape the conversation about food and health and risk and policy, all of these things.
One of the core arguments that I make is that it is fundamentally creating more, not less, alienation between the food industry and the public, in part because it’s misdiagnosing the problem.
The real facts frame, and those who are communicating from that perspective, are trying to correct a knowledge deficit so that they can get people to accept the technologies by teaching them the basics about how the technology works or convincing them that it is safe, that kind of thing. But what I’m showing in the book is that the real food frame, or the idea that good food is real, rather than processed, is the result of the convergence of a large set of legitimate concerns about the food system.
The real food frame really emerges from a confluence of growing concerns about obesity across the population, concerns about environmental and sustainability impacts of food production and concerns about risk related to technology, all of these things in their own ways, say, stay away from processed food. Try to change the food system. And then they come together and they amplify that message. So when the food industry then reframes that set of legitimate concerns as a problem of ignorance and misinformation and tries to correct it through education, it doesn’t work, and you’re right, it is further alienating.
What is the Center for Food Integrity, and how are they trying to right the ship of this dialog between industry and consumers to build trust?
The Center for Food Integrity is an interesting organization. It’s a nonprofit organization funded by its food industry members. It has identified a problem in how the food industry communicates with the public, very much the same one that that I’m talking about in the book, and it says to members of the food industry, look, we can’t keep communicating with the public in the way we have been. It’s not working. The facts first tell them the science “lead with expertise” mode of communication that the food industry has been engaged in for decades is clearly not working, because we’re losing trust, and we need to find a way to maintain trust so that we can maintain what they call license to operate, or freedom to operate with minimalized, formal restrictions or regulation.
So the Center for Food Integrity sets about trying to do research that can help them develop new methods for communication. And the center of their platform has been transparency and connecting through shared values. If you’ve seen any kind of marketing, and I know you have seen marketing campaigns for food products or food companies or brands that really emphasize transparency of you know how food is made, or the values of the company, or the ability to ask questions about the technology, or tries to connect through shared values right around, say, animal welfare or the environment, all of that is the kind of communication that the Center for Food Integrity has influenced.
How many large food companies are involved with the Center for Food Integrity? Are they getting any traction?
Oh, yeah. The Center for Food Integrity has support of many of the largest players in the food system. And because the food industry is so consolidated, the big players have such a large influence, they actually train individual communicators how to have a conversation when you bump into somebody you know at the soccer game or something like that, as well as preparing companies for communication PR and marketing campaigns, or how to respond to requests from consumers for changes in policies or practices.
One place that you can really see their influence that’s been very interesting is also some of the novel food technologies that are being introduced now to solve for climate and other problems facing us in the future of food. Alternative proteins, for example, plant based proteins and cellular meats. They’re really trying to communicate around transparency and shared values to avoid a problem of consumers rejecting these new technologies. And a lot of that’s really influenced by the Center for Food Integrity.
“Real Food, Real Facts” explores the public’s aversion to processed food and the industry’s interpretation of our preferences. Photo courtesy of University of California Press.
Interesting. Does the term “ultra-processed food” muddy the waters even further and deepen misunderstandings between the public and the industry.
I see the term “ultra-processed food” as entering into very muddy waters. I wouldn’t say that it muddies the waters but I think that the kind of tension that already exists in what I call knowledge politics, like the whole conversation about processed food is really shaped by a contest over the kinds of questions and the kind of knowledge and expertise that should matter when it comes to food and health.
Should we be asking public health questions about how diets are shaped by their environments, and how we can change the environments in which people live to enhance health and healthy behaviors? Or should we be asking questions from a nutritional angle, maybe fortifying processed food or reformulating them to make them healthier? Or should we ask political and economic questions about how to make healthier foods more affordable and accessible? These are all different ways of thinking about food. There’s these intense contests going on over which should prevail.
“Ultra processed food” is a term that comes out of the work of public health researchers who are looking not at nutrition, or not solely through a nutritional lens, but through a public health lens that includes things like the behavior of the food industry, marketing to children, ubiquitousness, ease of access, cheapness. I guess you could say it muddies the waters because nutrition is a narrow, focused lens that focuses on the chemical constituents of food and its effects on the body. Public health is a broader lens that takes more into consideration but I also think that it’s a more robust tool for understanding what is going on with diet in our country and how to address it so I actually think it’s potentially a very useful tool.
Given the current political climate and what is happening to agencies that intersect with protecting people when it comes to food and issues of health and regulation — and I’m not talking about the lack of monetary support that is happening but also just the resources of departments that are imploding — could you say something about how this impacts researchers like you, or how you’re feeling about that possible loss of information?
I appreciate you pointing to the research piece. We need to do better in terms of our understanding of the relationship between food and health, food and well being. We are at an inflection point, too, in terms of tackling some big issues that will only get more intense as we move into the future with population growth and climate change and other pressures on the food system as well as increasing economic inequality. So we have a lot of work to do to understand how to move forward in a way that’s just and sustainable and nourishing for people all around the world, and understanding how to do that requires a lot of scientific research.
The decimation of research grants that I’m seeing happen around me is devastating in the present. But what I hear people talking about is how they’re rethinking the rest of their careers and the trajectories of their research going forward, not just today but in the coming years. That’s when it really comes home to me what a great and grave impact these cuts are having.
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