
The war on big food - prostoalex
http://fortune.com/2015/05/21/the-war-on-big-food/?src=longreads
======
chrisdone
At some point I just stopped buying anything that isn't fresh or obviously a
food I recognize. I live in a modern first-world country with a decent salary,
I enjoy walking to the shop a couple to a few times per week, I'm not slaving
away on my job so much that I don't have time to sit down and prepare a proper
meal throughout the day.

The realization seems to be that there's really no reason for me to buy these
kind of sugar/salt-packed opaque possibly-dangerous glorified ration packs
that we call food in our supermarkets.

The irony is that the ambiguity/confusion of nutrition has been a good way for
the industry to sell its garbage for generations, but now people are so
cognizant of the complexity of diet that they want to narrow down the
possibilities to the simplest thing possible, and that's not good for the
complex food industry. This also makes sense:

> Confectioneries have held up in part because there was never any confusion
> over whether they’re an indulgence.

It's the rest of the food that people eat when they're "being good" that they
care about.

~~~
giltleaf
I had a comment ready to add but you nailed it. The only thing I'd add w/r/t
packaged food, people are right to develop their own priorities in life - but
if you buy into this system, clearly your own health and the health of the
environment are not a priority for you.

Food and nutrition should not be an industry. What I mean by that is there
needs to be more concerns besides production efficiency and profit.

~~~
cmdrfred
I don't believe you can throw production efficiency by the wayside until the
world is fed. While any population starves the utmost priority is feeding
them. True believers of 'organic' food and its massively lower crop yields
should not have children and probably should commit suicide to make their
dream even a remote possibility.

~~~
lhc-
The thing is, we grow far more food than is required to feed the world on
aggregate today. Distribution is a huge problem though, and growing more food
without improving distribution strategies really doesn't help anyone.

~~~
cmdrfred
Distribution strategies will improve as a result of market forces. When
company A has way more product that it can ever hope to sell locally they will
be forced to invest in exporting that product globally.

~~~
giltleaf
The distribution strategies you allude to (though no one can describe them)
have yet to materialize over the decades since Earl Butz decided to ruin
American agriculture policy by promoting the type of farming you seem to
favor. America has been subsidizing and exporting commodity crops
internationally since the 70s and we still haven't solved hunger. The only
thing that has come out of it is even more subsidies distorting a free
agricultural market and reduced capacities for farmers in developing
countries. Why do you think we should keep pursuing this model?

------
sageabilly
I'm getting really tired of zeitgeist shifts away from "the way it's always
been" being sensationalized as "The WAR on [ENTRENCHED WAY OF DOING
THINGS]!!1!!!!!!!111!!!"

Especially with goods that are sold, especially in America. Aren't we supposed
to all be completely and totally enamored with capitalism and are't we all
spoon fed the line that "The market will sort things out"? Because I see this
as capitalism and the free market doing what conservatives always bark about
it doing- the market following along with consumer demand. And yeah we can sit
here and argue till we're blue in the face about whether or not the marketing
behind that consumer spending shift is sound or not or "fair" or not, but at
the end of the day, people are voting with their wallets and they're voting
against the old guard, and the old guard is panicking and flailing about
because they see that change is coming and they don't want to have to change.

~~~
moron4hire
Can we also please stop using the phrasing "War On..." for anything that
doesn't involve shooting guns at people?

~~~
knodi123
So "war on drugs" is still accurate, since it employs more armed soldiers than
world war 2?

~~~
moron4hire
Well, that one should be renamed more accurately to "war on poor people."

~~~
knodi123
Brilliant. And if I get caught with coke in my glovebox, I can go to court
file an "amica ignis" defense.

------
glup
I largely exited the standard food supply about two years ago after my partner
developed a number of food allergies including Celiac. It has been altogether
a wonderful experience. Our mix has been since then around 50% from farmers'
markets, 20% bulk goods from an organic grocer, 20% we grow ourselves (or more
between June and August), and at most 10% from a high-end butcher. Our
expenditures have increased only minimally (from ~10 to 12% of income; we are
graduate students so it is relatively high). We now spend less time overall
getting food: we spend ~1 hr a week the farmers' market (and see friends at
the same time) and ~1 hr a month at the grocery store. The butcher takes about
10 minutes a week. Charcuterie like chicken confit and smoked duck breast
keeps for weeks so we can keep a supply in the fridge; between this and the
bulk goods we _never_ make extra runs to the grocery store.

Some observations on the transition: -Expensive fresh items are easy to grow
in small amounts of space (e.g. herbs, berries) -"discrete meat is a treat":
we eat steaks, fillets, etc. less frequently and instead use stocks, bake
vegetables in animal fats, fry veggie cakes, and the like instead -Charcuterie
is amazing: pork and chicken are relatively expensive, and a lot of the French
preparations take very little time to prepare to serve -Fruits and vegetables
at farmers' markets are only marginally more expensive -Our farmer's markets
are a mixture of certified organic and conventional produce. We buy both, what
matters more is that it is small-scale. -Growing your own isn't for everyone,
and is certainly more expensive than buying it through a store (factoring in
opportunity cost for time and land, and you don't get economies of scale).
However, I would recommend it as a hobby to pretty much anyone on HN: I spend
8-12 hours a day on a computer, so spending 2-4 hours a week planting things,
pruning fruit trees, thinking through drip irrigation systems, and learning
about soil ecology is a ton of IRL fun.

We are very conscious that our diet is not 'natural' or in some way a
reversion to older ways of life. I can get ridiculously cheap drip irrigation
equipment on Amazon Prime delivered to my door, many of the vendors at the
farmer's market take Stripe, and there's no such thing as a crop failure in
mid 21st century coastal California. Our food system is what's next, no what
came before.

------
TACIXAT
I found out a few years ago that HFCS was contributing to my digestive issues
and that gluten was contributing to digestive issues as well as sinus issues.
I cut the two out (and caffeine for more sinus issues) and I feel great. There
seems to be this spectre about fad diet gluten free eaters. I've never met
anyone who doesn't eat gluten for fun. Even for me, it took a year on and off
to actually stop eating it.

I'd really like to see a study done on how many people follow these diets for
medical reasons, diagnosed or not, and how many people are doing it for 'fad'
reasons.

I'm not diagnosed with anything, but I've had these problems my entire life
and discovered the root cause by an elimination diet. If a hospital had
pointed out these issues when I was a child or teenager, it would have changed
my life. Recently when I brought up these issues to my doctor his response was
more or less 'well then don't eat gluten'.

Big food is losing market share and I'm sure they're fighting back. Not to get
too conspiracy theory but all the media on GF sensitivity being made up has
made me doubt myself multiple times, and multiple times I have regretted those
decisions to 'test to confirm'.

All told, I feel a lot better with the dietary changes I've made, and from the
health issues I hear other people describe I think they could benefit from an
elimination diet as well. If you have gas, diarrhea, or a stuffy nose/sinus
headaches on a regular basis, look at your diet as it could change your life.
Unless of course you enjoy those symptoms, in that case, carry on!

~~~
bowlich
When I was a kid I used to get sick all the time. Out of school probably two
months a year and just never really felt well ever. We identified the source
as pretty much corn products via an elimination diet.

The amazing thing is just how much corn is in the American diet. It's
everywhere. Crammed into every inch of pre-processed food. Pretty much set us
up for having to go back to making food from scratch and eating a lot of whole
foods which has been my diet ever since. No soda, no corn chips, no cereal,
except home-made granola, very few processed "box" foods. Instead I'm
sentenced to a life of eating whole vegetables, fruits, meat and cheese... the
horror! (j/k)

Eliminating corn from my diet while I was still young, I feel really set me up
to continue eating healthy throughout my life and opened my family's eyes to
the sheer amount of corn in everything in America.

------
VLM
Something not discussed is long term food fads. You could get me to eat pop
tarts and pizza rolls in the 80s because they were new. I knew they were bad,
but new and interesting enough to try. Pizza rolls in 2015? Dude I was eating
those when Reagan was president, boring, try my homemade carnitas instead.
Unfortunately I go food shopping every week, and there isn't anything
processed that is interesting enough for me to try for a couple years. I'm
always looking for something interesting, but there isn't anything new.

Specifically, I'm claiming processed foods follow a fad trajectory, unlike,
say, apples or steak, and fad trajectory shows natural decay over time, and
there simply are no new processed food fads that are gaining traction.

The closest thing I can find to a current processed food fad, is about a year
ago there was an attempt to push greek yogurt into freaking everything, but
that seems to have failed. A few years ago there was a push for ready to eat
rice on shelf stable bags, but that kind of rice tasted like contaminated
styrofoam so I only bought it a couple times.

Its hard to believe but just a few decades ago things like frozen pizza, hot
pockets, and pop tarts were new and vibrant food fads. What we call processed
food in 2015 was actually NEW in maybe the 80s. There just isn't anything new
anymore.

~~~
saboot
There are definitely industry wide food fads. Thinking recently we had added
protein in everything, the pretzel bun craze, and for a brief period mango
flavoring was offered in several chains suddenly. I didn't save the comment
but I had read a user discussing previously that these are usually introduced
at industry events and conferences to businesses looking for the next 'new'
thing

~~~
mdm_
I've noticed, at least here in Canada, there's been this real push with
avacado over the last two years. Subway seems to be the biggest pusher, but
I've seen all kinds of other advertising about avacado, which previously had
been this sort of weird fruit they'd stock in small quantities at the grocery
store, and which I'd never seen anyone eat.

------
saturdaysaint
There are sea changes/disruptions going on in food comparable to changes in
media consumption, ride sharing, the music industry etc. Look at McDonald's
rapid decline, microbrew beer going from a niche to outselling Budweiser.

Even 10-15 years ago, %90 of what the average person learned about food came
from mass media ads. Now it's probably %90 social media. In this world, mass
produced food is practically the definition of "unshareable" \- there's not
much interesting about something that's inherently common and such food
usually isn't too photogenic. Like so many products on the internet, this is a
world where "the long tail" of food products, restaurants and even recipes can
thrive like never before.

More than anything, I think there's a healthy competitive dynamic going on -
food is legitimately getting _better_. Yelp reviews give local restaurants
equal footing with national brands. Restaurants of all stripes have to compete
with their own consumers, who have easier access to good recipes (and greater
incentive to cook).

~~~
lhc-
On beer, craft beer is still far from outselling Bud. According to their own
trade group[0], they hit 11% of total US sales last year, their highest ever
by far. By comparison, so-called domestics (A-B Inbev, Miller Coors) control a
vast majority of the market, with 47% of the total US market just going to A-B
Inbev according to wikipedia [1].

[0]: [https://www.brewersassociation.org/press-releases/craft-
brew...](https://www.brewersassociation.org/press-releases/craft-brewer-
volume-share-of-u-s-beer-market-reaches-double-digits-in-2014/) [1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anheuser-
Busch_InBev](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anheuser-Busch_InBev)

------
bambax
> _chains like Target are actively giving increasing space on their shelves to
> a slew of New Age players like [...] Hampton Creek (which sells a popular
> plant-based mayo)_

I understand people who buy "junk mayo" (I do, more often than I'd like to
admit) but I really don't understand why you would buy "high end mayo",
because, if you're quality-conscious, how hard is it to make your own?

Or is this some kind of vegan mayo? But it's also possible to make your own
mayonnaise with no eggs.

What is not possible however, is for a product that has to sit on shelves for
any period of time to have no preservatives and no pasteurisation.

~~~
VLM
"What is not possible however, is for a product that has to sit on shelves for
any period of time to have no preservatives and no pasteurisation."

The crowd most likely to buy that product likely will have a negative
emotional illogical response to food irradiation but it would technically
work.

For awhile irradiated ground beef was available and I bought it all the time,
no difference in taste and 0% chance of food poisoning. I was talked out of it
by someone making the point that sterilizing the product means the mfgr has no
motivation to keep shit and other slaughterhouse waste out of the product,
because no matter what it is, blood, maggots, urine, bodily waste, it'll all
be made sterile and 0% chance of food poisoning. That was a little gross.
Regardless if its irradiated or not, this is going to be an issue for anything
preserved. If someone can sneeze into the mayo and nothing happens, that means
little motivation will exist not to sneeze into the mayo, which is pretty
gross.

~~~
keenerd
> because no matter what it is, blood, maggots, urine, bodily waste, it'll all
> be made sterile and 0% chance of food poisoning.

I'm sorry, but that is incorrect and you were misled. Food poisoning is not
directly caused by micro-organisms but by their excreted byproducts. If you
take a rotten piece of meat, irradiate it and cook it well-done, you will
still get sick. If you take a can that is bulging with botulism, irradiate it
and thoroughly cook it, you will still get sick. Because while the micro-
organisms are dead, the toxin (literal toxin, not "chemicals") is still
present.

For an analogy: boiling water will sterilize it, but not do anything about
turbid mud or arsenic or other non-living contaminates. Irradiating food does
not mean you get to be lax in other standards.

------
werber
People are cooking more, buying pre-made food less... WAR, meh

------
throw7
Yeah, the title is way overblown ("war"... come on).

Big Corps are already shifting... my favorite personal example is Heinz
ketchup... they make a simple ketchup called Simply Heinz. Awesome.

~~~
commentzorro
Still contains the same amount of sugar so just about as bad for you.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Turns out the standard for ketchup includes that sugar. If you don't put it
in, they make you call it 'imitation ketchup'. My local grocery makes their
own, and has a sign explaining this.

~~~
commentzorro
Well then, I guess it's time we all switch to catsup. (Sorry)

I was surprised about the mandate for sugar. I wanted to see who managed to
get that rule passed. A quick search led me to the FDA site for rules of
catsup:
[http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRS...](http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=155.194)

There doesn't appear to be any requirement for sugars here. Maybe your grocer
got it wrong?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Or maybe I'm an old guy, and the rules changed :)

That doc does list sweetener, but its one of three ingredients listed as "one,
or any two or more" which I guess means one or more?

------
Shivetya
not only do they want simple ingredient lists with names they can recognize or
even picture in their heads, for many consumers these specialty brands an easy
way for them to fool themselves into believe they are being healthy. For some
it may even fall into the category of luxury items, treating themselves. the
food scares a few years ago with imported food from China probably has done
some to move this market as well.

Yet it will be interesting to see what happens to people's choices when after
years of moving to easy to understand foods their health doesn't improve. The
one connection most of them haven't made is that it isn't necessarily the
types of food they are eating but simply the volume especially related to
their activity levels.

~~~
teekert
But it is easier to eat large volumes of pizza than broccoli as it lacks
certain substances that make you eat more. There is also less salt in your
home made tomato sauce (at least you have control over the amount.)

~~~
VLM
Sugar levels too. I've noticed pizza is a sweet desert now, whereas when I was
a kid, pizza was herbal/savory. I've made homemade pizza that is herbal/savory
and it was interesting, you can't buy pizza either frozen or delivery that
doesn't have sickly sweet dough and sauce.

Some of the sauces are totally gross corn syrup ketchup level sweet.

Maximal processed food profit does occur when everything sold is a glazed
donut, but when everything tastes like that, flavor and interest is lost.

~~~
Brakenshire
There was a BBC documentary about sugar a couple of months back. The WHO
recommended limit for a daily dose of unbound sugar (that is, sugar that isn't
bound in fibrous material in fruit and vegetables) is 6 teaspoons a day, and
they had a single fizzy drink that had 18 spoons on its own, a ready meal with
12 tsps or a portion of noodles with 9 tsps.

[https://youtu.be/_dqKmOLpofo?t=25m40s](https://youtu.be/_dqKmOLpofo?t=25m40s)

The original poster on this comment thread is really wrong when he says that
being able to trace back your food to standard ingredients will not help your
health. It's extremely unlikely that someone cooking their own food would put
60g of sugar into their evening meal. Imagine cooking for a family of five,
and putting a quarter of a kilo of sugar into the recipe!

