My posts won’t always be lengthy, folks - that would be boring, but I just want to say a word or two (or six hundred) about the food industry. We get a monthly food magazine which on the whole is very informative about what is current and new. It’s aimed at food producers and is also a showcase for new and innovative machinery for the production of various food types.
This month’s edition is all about healthy options and the increasing trends for these - in particular for adopting the use of plant-based foods. On page 12 there’s an article on how businesses need to accelerate action to support healthier diets and lifestyles due to the global problem of type 2 diabetes, with one in eleven people currently living with this malady. The article goes on to say that 80% of type 2 diabetes could be prevented if people took pro-active steps to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
Now, we hear this story over and over again, don’t we? And this article makes it seem as if the food industry is taking it seriously. But I’m not so sure!
The article on the very next page is an eye-opener. There’s a half-page colour photo of a sumptuous jam doughnut and a full glossy page of the latest machinery that could produce tons of these at a fast and furious rate. To add insult to injury the next two pages contain an article (glossy photos included) about the latest machinery for what are referred to as ‘value added snacks’ – what the writer classes as healthier type snacks. But we hear so very often that snacking is not good! It’s a sure fire way to increase dangerous body fat, which ultimately leads to health problems such as diabetes, unless you are snacking on fruit and nuts, so the health experts say.
I won’t go on much more - I’m certain that you can see what I’m getting at. I just think that there are serious inbuilt contradictions in the food industry which is primarily propelled by the economics and self-interest of large multi-nationals whose main objective is profit, not health and well being. There is evidence of this recently in a piece of research in “Which” magazine which shows that some producers jumping on the vegan bandwagon are producing foods that are not all they are cracked up to be; they all have trendy packaging and claim to be healthy and nutritious but many are over-processed and found to contain more chemical additives than natural ingredients.
I’ve noticed a huge increase in veggie and vegan products in all the supermarkets, and I’ve tried some in the hope that they’d live up to their claim of deliciousness but have usually been disappointed. This is partly because most of these new, on-trend products use soya and John and myself like neither the taste nor the texture of this ingredient. I bought a nutroast around Christmas without realising it contained soya and after tasting it I threw it out - we are definitely not fussy eaters but it was just awful. There are also concerns about the environmental impact of planting soya but that’s another story.
That’s my moan over about the food industry, folks. There are a lot of very good things going on in it but we also have to be aware of false claims when buying any type of ready meal, whatever it says on the packaging.
