The final session on day one of Food Matters Live, the inaugural event held at London’s Excel, was entitled ‘The Persuaders: The role of media and marketing in changing how we eat’. Chaired by Radio 4 and presenter of The Food Programme, Sheila Dillon, the panel was composed of TV pundit Janet Street Porter, TV producer, doctor and science journalist Michael Mosley and CMO of Interbrand, Graham Hales.
“We are already suffering from ‘Diabesity’ said Michael, referring to the dramatic increase in levels of obesity, and diabetes. It is costing the National Health Service £25bn a year and this figure is set to double in the next year.”
He then referred to the move by Baxters to reduce the salt levels in its soup. But apparently when it was labeled ‘Healthy soup’, sales bombed. So the company has steadily reduced salt levels over the past four years but now does not shout about it. It seems the consumer does not want to be told what is good for them.
“It’s only when you go to the US that you realise how much less salty our processed food is,” he commented. So we need to thank these big food companies in the UK for leading this silent revolution that is lowering salt, which in turn is lowering blood pressure and preventing strokes.
Janet Street Porter commented that the big shock for her when starring in the jungle TV series: “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here!” was not the threat of eating creepy crawlies but the fact that there was no salt or sugar to accompany everyday meals. “There were people crying over this,” she remembers.
And her answer to the obesity crisis? “It has to begin with the children. We need to start teaching them to cook from the minute they enter school. So that they understand about food and nutrition and can cook better than their parents,” she suggested. “If you can’t cook when you leave school, then it is like turning round a super tanker.”
“Journalism feeds anxieties about food and spreads the scare stories.” She added. “There are too many people who think they need gluten free and dairy free diets, when they don’t. So many surveys, are set up by PR’s and just masquerade as fact. We believe we are a nation with wheat and and dairy intolerances but I am the cynic here and believe it just makes people feel a little bit special or different. There’s more rubbish written about food than anything else,” she claimed.
Brands are valuable and have to do what is right for their consumer, responded Graham. But people have a lot of choice when it comes to the media they choose to tap into today. They are often pre-meditated about the foods they want to buy. But desires change and attitudes change. We all want to live longer and consume better foods.
Michael commented that most foods are inherently innocuous : “Take a bowl of cream or a bowl of sugar – you don’t want to eat too much of either but once you combine them to make icecream the appeal becomes much stronger. Take snacks, too, here the combination of carbohydrates, salt and fats can taste delicious and be so moreish that you eat too many and can damage your health. Nutritional science is not the difficult part, it’s the long term impact that is ominous.,” he concluded. He is particularly scathing about cereals and says we would all be better off eating high protein foods such as eggs for breakfast.
But Janet’s words about the power of children ring most true. Do you remember the black and white advertisements of children begging their parents (with glimpses of oxygen cylinders) to give up smoking? It took some time but in many cases it worked. None of us want to be told what to do but we will listen to our loved ones, especially if they are asking us to live longer, for them.
The FoodBev Team will be back at Food Matters Live on Thursday, videoing a number of companies with exciting new food ideas. These range from the new launch of low salt Hoopo peanut snacks, to Nestlé removing saturated fat in Kit Kats and Nothing but the Cow Dairy free drinks, Nourish me Now protein smoothe, lower calorie Coca-Cola Life and Chocolate Chia muffins from Ugg Foods.
There’s plenty of progress to be made in the food industry when it comes to healthy eating but we certainly have to thank a number of food companies for silently playing their part.
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