Striking the Balance in Food Labels

Striking the Balance in Food Labels

After our discussion with Professor Goldstein about food labels, the question occurred to me: how much labeling is too much labeling?

Our class conversation concerned recent food labeling laws surrounding GMOs. While food labeling in the past was generally confined to food safety and nutritional content, consumers today are concerned about more than these two factors. In the age of “voting with your fork,” people are realizing that they can have an impact on the food industry and production processes simply by their food choices.

The ethical implications of modern-day food production has certainly come to the forefront. Consumers are thus responding by attempting to choose foods produced by methods with fewer harmful consequences for animal welfare, labor, and the environment. From Leah’s Eating Animals discussion about farm animal conditions to Professor Goldstein’s environmental concerns from pesticides to climate change to manure pollution, labeling plays an important role of progress in the food industry.

Still, while these new ethical labels serve an important role, increased labeling, whether for nutrition content or procution process, also comes with risks. Too much information in food labels dilutes the messaging and can distract from the some of the more important nutritional content labels. For some consumers, more information can cause them to lose interest in food labels altogether. Concerns already exist that consumers are not paying attention to labels or understanding their content. Increased food labeling plays a role in the scientism of food, complicating food choices even further for already confused consumers. When one of the core messages of our class is to eat simple, wholesome food in its natural form, the obsession with food labels opposes this teaching.  

On the opposite end of the spectrum, increased food labeling can cause people to obsess over food content and encourage orthorexia. f messages about quality or health associated with labels become overemphasized, the high cost of culture can kick in, where people act against their economic best interests to maintain high food standards. Especially when GMO’s have not been proven to have any adverse health effects and ambiguous environmental safety effects, the labeling requirements may not be as helpful as anticipated.

Nevertheless,  food labeling is important for building trust between the consumer and manufacturer.  It adheres to the idea of people’s right to know what they are eating. Certainly there is a reason to add new labels regarding better nutritional and ethical visibility, however it may be important to recognize the downside to labeling as well.

How much do you really control your diet?

We started this semester off with a fairly simple assignment.  Every student in the class needed to keep a diet diary for two days.  It just so happened that I would be traveling for work during most of the weeklong period we had to complete this assignment.  While I realized that my consumption while traveling would vary from my normal eating habits, I thought it would be more interesting to track my diet while on the road than it would be to review a normal period.  Here is brief summary of my 48-hour diet diary:

Day one started with a tofu scramble before a breakfast meeting at 7:30am EST.  Throughout the course of the morning there were a couple of waters and a banana as a snack.  At lunch I had a turkey sandwich and a bag of chips with some colleagues in the cafeteria before heading to the airport en route to Seattle.  While traveling, I consumed a few more waters, a protein bar, and some honey-roasted peanuts before arriving in Seattle where I needed to complete some work.  This meant Chinese food in my hotel room at 8:40pm local time (11:40pm EST) after Uber Eats mixed up my original order.  Day two featured another breakfast meeting but this time with a buffet.  I wasn’t particularly hungry but had some fresh fruit and two pieces of bacon.  Lunch was provided in the form of a grilled chicken sandwich and bag of chips with peers and late afternoon ended with a happy hour featuring finger foods plus a couple of beers before running back to the hotel to change and then meeting some friends for dinner at a pizza joint.

            I don’t expect readers to find my recounting of these meals particularly captivating.  In fact, I would venture that most would find these 48 hours fairly unremarkable and perhaps even relatable and that’s what I find concerning.  During this relatively normal two-day period, I didn’t have a single meal where I controlled when I ate and often times I didn’t even have control over the portion size I was served (for the sake of simplicity we’ll ignore the lack of control relating to what I was served, how it was prepared, where it was sourced, etc. since those all could be posts in their own right). 

Startlingly enough, I didn’t realize how little control I had over my meals until I reviewed my diet diary after the trip.  However, I reassured myself that things would change once I settled back into my “normal” routine.  I was wrong.  Between work lunches with colleagues, meals with friends in the evenings or on the weekends, and squeezing breakfasts in between a workout and my first meeting of the day, I realized that I probably only had complete control over six to eight meals a week. 

            This realization made Dr. Linda Craighead’s lecture on Disorderly Eating particularly interesting to me.  In addition to a variety of other topics, Dr. Craighead discussed the importance of monitoring how your body feels before/during/after eating and the amount you consume at each meal.  Her application of mindfulness to eating makes a lot of sense to me in helping determine the right amount to eat when meal times and portion sizes are often out of your control.  Since work, school, family, social, and other personal obligations will likely continue to impact my eating habits, I found this to be a particularly valuable lesson and something that will help me eat until I am satisfied rather than eat until I am full/finished.

Eating Up the East Coast

For my Spring Break vacation I traveled from Atlanta to Chapel Hill to NYC to Montreal and back again. Overall, it was extremely easy to indulge in NYC and use "I'm walking everywhere" as a--perhaps valid--excuse. Montreal was dominated by healthier choices, while the modes of transportation between these cities dictated making food choices out of convenience.

During my first day in NYC, I walked 27,000 steps and was ravenous. My sister and I ate dinner at Chelsea Market, the trendy food hall on the West Side of Manhattan. I think it might be impossible to make a bad food choice here, but we opted for huge bowls of handmade Taiwanese noodle soup. Ethically, I thought this food was a great choice because I could see the noodles being made right in front of me, and the dish was also the only vegetarian choice on the menu (it was actually vegan). It was made with an incredibly flavorful broth as well as mock duck made out of seitan. According to the gentleman at the counter, people order this dish and get worried it's actually real duck because of how believable the texture of the seitan is. I've never tried duck because I felt too guilty, so I can only assume these people are correct. Also on the menu for my dinner that night was a pint of Brooklyn-made Pilsner and a slice of delicious, fairly low-sugar halvah.

Taiwanese-style vegan soup at Chelsea Market

My second day in NYC, my sister demanded a trip to Williamsburg, Brooklyn for a rainbow bagel. I wasn't so sure. They seemed gimmicky and probably not that good. However, I obliged, mostly because I was starving and hadn't eaten anything else that day. We arrived and made our orders at the Bagel Store, whose purpose seemed to only be fulfilling orders of rainbow bagels. It was exactly as I expected: overly sugary yet hedonistically satisfying. 

A couple of days later, we boarded the Amtrak for an 11-hour ride to Montreal. The total downside of traveling via train is that it's impossible to eat well without some intense forethought. The dining car on the train has pre-packaged sandwiches, sodas and candy bars at a marked-up price. My sister and I packed food we knew wouldn't spoil, like fruit, Clif bars, and sandwiches. I also picked up an orzo salad in Penn Station to eat, but was disappointed to find it was old, sort of slimy and flat out unappetizing. Thankfully we'd brought enough food on the way up, but on the way pack our supply wasn't as great and I bought a candy bar and soda, as they were out of everything else. I wish Amtrak had healthier options. This is probably a tall request for an antiquated mode of transportation barely making ends meet as it is. For the record, I loved traveling by train, and highly recommend it, just remember to bring plenty of food. 

Once in Montreal, the food selection was bountiful and easily accessible. I ordered a pizza on our first night out of convenience, and then picked up fruits and vegetables from the nearby grocery store the next day. My sister joked that our shopping cart looked like an American shopping cart, as we'd also loaded up on some less-healthy foods for the train ride back. I also ate copious amounts of macarons, bagels, and rolled my own maple syrup candy. Montreal was full of great people, and although the language barrier slightly intimidated me at first, they appreciate the effort of those who attempt to speak French and don't seem to mind switching to English when necessary. The only Quebec delicacy I didn't venture to try was poutine, which I'm sort of disappointed about, but I didn't really need a bunch of fries, gravy and cheese anyway.

Maple syrup candy

After spending a week in 2 different countries, I couldn't gather if Canadian portions or eating habits were similar to the American way of eating, but it seemed like I saw far less people with large waistlines in Canada than I do at home. I'm sure I could find the data on this, but I also wonder if people who live in walkable metropolitan areas tend to be more fit than those who live in areas where we spend more time in our cars. 

To sum up my trip, it was a great eating adventure. As noted above, it was interesting to consider the different eating habits of  the Quebecois versus Americans, a difference that I couldn't fully discern. I was glad to be in cities with incredible access to food, but neglected to make the healthiest of choices in either city. Eating well was most difficult on the train, where meals had to be carefully thought out. Next time I travel, I think I will utilize nearby grocery stores as much as possible to both pay less for food and pack healthier snacks. 

 

Reflections on Cooking for the High Cost of Culture

Reflections on Cooking for the High Cost of Culture

Our team very much enjoyed cooking for the High Cost of Culture class with Dr. Hadley. Dr. Hadley defined the high cost of culture as the potential monetary and wellbeing costs that come from attempting to adhere to cultural norms or by striving to adhere to status hierarchies that are costly. In particular, Dr. Hadley explained the issue in the context of US consumers purchasing branded vs generic food. He pointed out that people tend to prefer branded over generics and pay more for them even though data suggests that there are very few nutritional differences. In fact, he discussed that in many occasions generics have a higher nutritional value.

For cooking inspiration, Dr. Hadley suggested cooking two meals- one using all generic ingredients and one using all name brand ingredients. Using his suggestion, we decided to do a taco comparison of all organic Whole Foods ingredients to tacos purchased from the fast food chain Taco Bell. We chose these two because Whole Foods as a grocery store enjoys a reputation as top quality foods for an excessively high price, whereas Taco Bell has a reputation for very poor quality food for a very reasonable price. We thought the two would create an interesting dichotomy of price, quality, taste, and overall experience. Taco Bell had similar items in its bean burrito and 7 layer burritos. We loosely based our organic tacos on a recipe from Food Network.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 cups onion, finely chopped
• 3 tablespoons minced garlic
• 3 tablespoons ground cumin
• 2 pounds ground beef (vegetarian option Beyond Beef)
• 1 teaspoon ground chipotle pepper
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 cups beef broth
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 12 to 16 taco shells or warmed soft tortillas, as desired
• Grated Monterey Jack or Cheddar, for garnish
• Diced tomatoes, for garnish
• Minced jalapenos, for garnish
• Sour cream, for garnish
• Shredded iceburg lettuce, for garnish
• Guacamole, recipe follows, for garnish
• Salsa, recipe follows, for garnish
• Chopped red onion, for garnish
• Guacamole:

o   3 ripe avocados, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

o   3 tablespoons finely chopped yellow onion

o   3 cloves garlic, minced

o   1 tablespoon freshly minced cilantro leaves

o   2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

o   1/2 teaspoon salt

·       Salsa:

o   4 large tomatoes, about 21/2 pounds, seeded and roughly chopped

o   1 cup chopped white onions

o   5 teaspoons minced garlic

o   4 serrano peppers, stems and seeds removed, minced

o   1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

o   2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

o   1/2 teaspoon salt

To feed the same number of people, the cost of Whole Foods tacos as around $145, while the total from Taco Bell was around $30. Everyone agreed that Whole Foods was a lot more preferable. They discussed how Taco Bell did not taste very fresh and was much saltier and staler. Still the price tag differential was so large that it displayed the high cost of culture, particularly when college kids lean towards Whole Foods on very small budgets. At the end of the day, the caloric values are similar, and a problem would arise when people go hungry to avoid the fast foods for the cultural value of organic groceries. Although our meal brought up an interesting discussion, I think it was a unique example of the high cost of culture. The Taco Bell to Whole Foods comparison is not your typical generic to branded comparison in terms of freshness, processed ingredients, cost comparison and overall quality. It would be another interesting experiment to buy organic vs. name brand items from the same grocery store- for example in black beans or tortilla chips. I think it would be a lot harder to tell the difference then.

Overall, Dr. Hadley’s class brought up several interesting issues around hunger.  When young professionals in India use their money to purchase designer clothes or the newest mobile phones, while going hungry, should they be included in the hunger index?  Likewise, when people in poverty do not meet daily caloric demands using the cheap options available, but instead they adhere to a diet that matches  social/cultural norms about the "right" kinds of foods, such as meat, are they truly hungry? In general, Dr. Hadley’s class opened our eyes to the many layers of “hunger” and the complicated dynamics surrounding the design of social safety net programs. It is not as simple as the stereotypical iimage of an underwiehgt individual, as food insecurity is often associated with overweight in the US and poor mental health.  I very much appreciated the lecture for broadening our understanding of the issue.