As I was looking through the New York Times articles discussing food, I came across one of Mark Bittman's old pieces and I decided to share it with you guys.
Bittman introduces the idea of labeling on food products to benefit the consumers, not the producers. As we know, a lot of processed foods have obscure ingredients that were most likely produced inside a lab and we don't have much knowledge of how it affects our body. He mentions how labeling should advance to the next step and include any antibiotics or pesticides used as well as clearly list if any ingredients are not naturally occurring.
Bittman also argues that a system of "traffic-lighting" ingredients could help consumers find out exactly how beneficial or detrimental the food available is based on a green, yellow, or red color similar to a traffic light. He includes data from a study performed on beverages and the results show that the red-lighted soda went down 16.5% while the green-lighted beverages increased 9.6%.
He also touches on how the three major things that our food labels SHOULD tell us are: nutrition, foodness, and welfare.
Nutrition would obviously point out what qualities in the food are beneficial to the consumer. Foodness covers how much of the ingredients in the product are actually food and how much of the finished product is real food. Lastly, welfare would tell us how the animals, plants, workers, and the Earth were treated in the process of cultivating it.
Although this is Bittman's version of the perfect label, it definitely offers information that should be open to the consumers and gives us a lot to think about.
Here's the link just in case anyone wants to read over it themselves!
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/bittman-my-dream-food-label.html
Side Note: I didn't know the post had to be about our topic so I did it on something else, sorry. My topic is actually food regulation!
I find your topic really interesting as it concerns the importance of labeling and whether or not in benefits the consumers. I would definitely agree with the fact that we don't know a lot about what is in our foods and that is why food labels are very important. I personally believe food labels can tell us what we are consuming and putting into our bodies, especially if it can be harmful to our own health.
ReplyDeleteI honestly find it quite disturbing knowing that some food is produced and put on the shelves without a truthful label that informs the consumer what exactly is in the food they are eating. Knowing that this happens makes me want to avoid processed foods all together. Some people argue for the out of sight out of mind point of view. They say that consumers are better off not knowing what is in their food. However, I completely disagree with this. If big companies are purposefully leaving out ingredients to include on the label of food, that means the ingredient is bad enough that they don’t want consumers knowing about it. I agree with Bittman’s version of the perfect label that should tell us about the nutrition, foodness, and welfare. However, I doubt this is an achievable goal for our society. At least, we should expect a fully honest label.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Bittman when it comes to food our labeling system: It needs to change. I like the idea of the traffic light system. I feel like a lot of people find our food labels to be intimidating with all of the huge scientific words used to describe everything that goes into our everyday food. I think that by using this simpler method of labeling that Bittman has proposed will definitely change what people purchase at the grocery store and, ultimately, put in their bodies. I think it's time that consumers start demanding more upfront and clear labels when it comes to our food. We have the right to know exactly what goes into our body, especially since we are the ones with the money that allow these big name food corporations to continue running their businesses.
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