Nutrition 1 - getting advice from an octopus?

Where do you get good advice and information about healthy eating, about nutritious food?

Good advice on healthy eating and nutrition??

Very few of us are still cooking and eating like our grandparents. Very few of us learn about nutrition within the food culture of our family, the way it used to be. 

Nutrition advice is everywhere - media articles, friends, celebrity cooks, advertising, government guidelines, online health gurus and more. 

What if I tell you that you are probably really getting your information about healthy eating and nutrition from the food industry bodies... yes, from those corporations set up specifically to maximise profit. 

This article explores the food industry's numerous strategies to maximise profit using the metaphor of an octopus that spreads confusion and clouding ink all over advice about nutrition. Nothing against the amazing octopus; it just has conveniently numerous tentacles and is so flexible that it can get into any space.

As a result, confusion about healthy eating abounds. 

And it's having a seriously bad effect on our health.

On the topic of nutrition, we are not helped much by a dictionary definition. 

The problem is not so much the way that nutrition is defined; it is more our limited knowledge or even misunderstanding of the way that nutrition functions in our bodies - the process is unbelievably complex.

Research into nutrition requires an holistic understanding of how very complex food compounds work within a mindbogglingly complex human physiological system. 

Nutrition research is very, very challenging to do well. 

Primary (direct) research on nutrition is usually loaded with caveats and cautions, statements of assumptions required about the research, tentative findings and speculation of possible implications.

In research, each study contributes a tiny bit of information only, which needs re-checking and re-testing, before being accepted. It then becomes part of a body of information within which it needs to be interpreted. No single study can tell people what or what not to eat. Such knowledge involves a gradual amassing of information; it takes extended time and considerable funding. The aim is to move closer and closer to the facts.

Into this caution, tentativeness and complexity, enter the food industry bodies. Their aim is to maximise profit.

Large, well-resourced corporations represent primary production and food manufacturing industries including fruit, sugar, dairy, meat, wheat, alcohol, etc. Others are not so large. 

Their purpose is to represent their own industry's needs which includes looking after business profitability. 

Each food industry body works to ensure we keep consuming their products. They look for ways ways to get into the public's ear about the benefits of their industry's product.

And therein lies the problem.

The food that well-conducted scientific research collated over years can tell us is nutritious is not necessarily that which generates the most profit. 

The octopus works as a metaphor for the food industry bodies, in so many ways.

Artwork from veeptopus

Much like a crafty octopus, the food industry bodies slip their many arms and their considerable influence into every nook and cranny to shape nutrition research and policy, and release numerous media articles providing favourable information about their product and 'helpful' nutritional information. Or more accurately, nutrition misinformation. 

Misinformation is often much better for profit. 

Just like an octopus, they are smart and dexterous. Food industry bodies are good at camouflaging their real intentions, tracking down those tasty factoids that suit them, slipping though gaps in public understanding about nutrition and biology, and getting what they need to flourish by manipulating the slow processes of research and policy. 

Occasionally, you do see them in plain sight, when negative findings about their particular food product surfaces. They use the octopus' strategy of spraying clouding ink of supposedly 'controversial findings' in order to cast doubt and confusion into the sea of nutritional misinformation.

We can hardly see what's what anymore. 

Nutrition advice should not be the role of food industry bodies.

The epidemic of diseases linked to the Western diet is forcing the activities of those crafty octopuses into the spotlight. 

Science clearly shows that many of the leading causes of death in Western countries, like heart disease, strokes, and diabetes, are strongly linked to the diets high in animal products. The evidence is very strong that cow's milk has a link with Type 1 Diabetes. Sugar is clearly identified as dietary risk factor for heart disease. Diet, rather than environment or genetics, appears to be the major factor in the progression of some cancers. These findings are based on decades of research.

But they are not necessarily cutting through the misinformation about nutrition all around us.

It has a lot to do with those food industry octopuses. Profits are maximised by keeping the public buying the foods the industry body represents. Profit is the driver, regardless of actual benefits or negative impacts on the human health. (Reminding anyone of the tobacco industry?)

Here are just a few examples of how the food industry octopuses have used those agile arms to capture and distort the public's understanding of nutrition.

♦️ The healthy food pyramid first developed in the 1970s wasn't based so much on what human require for nutrition, but what the food industry bodies lobbied for inclusion. While the 'eat more/eat less' pyramid shape was based on nutrition science, the powerful diary, meat and grain industry bodies lobbied successfully to get their products named on the healthy food pyramid and nutritionally empty sugar was included as a category. Check out this page for the decreasing power of these bodies on the Australian version of the food pyramid over time.

♦️ Food industry bodies can fund research that diverts attention away from more important studies related to public health. For example, Coca Cola and the sugar industry directly funded research into cholesterol and fat, which worked to distract from the role of sugar as a dietary risk factor for heart disease for decades. 

♦️ A discreet way to infiltrate public information is to set up or attempt to influence the 'independent' charities related to food consumption. For example, in Nov 2018 Diabetes UK entered into three year partnership with the British manufacturer of a sugar-sweetened beverage. Okay, they might have been desperate for funding, but can they really control what they do with this funding and what messages they can spread? History tells us not very likely… 

♦️ Whether or not the outcome of research may be commercially exploitable and commercially favourable may significantly influence the decision of companies to provide funding. A 2017 Cochrane systemic review (a look across the whole body of knowledge) concluded that industry-sponsored studies more often report findings that favour the industry body sponsor. 

♦️ Media statements from food industry bodies can cherry pick findings to suggest benefits of their products or report on results that are quite dubious. For example, the studies that spawned the famous 'French paradox': a diet high in diary but lower rates of heart disease, were found to be flawed or inaccurate. Not only were there serious cardiovascular profiles for the French people, they also had Europe's highest rates of liver disease. The promotion of the mythical health 'benefits' of red wine nevertheless resulted in increased sales, after the alcohol industry boards promoted the 'protective effect' of red wine and worked to undermine guidelines about restricting alcohol consumption.

♦️ The master stroke remains insisting on changes to guidelines that water-down limits or minimise harm of products in government guidelines. For example, an earlier draft of Australia's national alcohol strategy referred to an 'alcohol culture' contributing to 'increased risk of serious harm and the development of harmful drinking patterns'. However, after the alcohol industry's feedback the subsequent guidelines stated: 'Alcohol is an intrinsic part of Australian culture and it plays a central role in most people's social lives.'

♦️ If all else fails, create doubt if research results are negative: describe them as controversial rather than bad. Use of the word controversy implies the science is not clear in areas where it is actually very strong, for example cow's milk having a strong link with Type 1 Diabetes. The Canadian Dairy Farmers industry body is absolutely clear that 'milk products can be part of healthy diet'. The research is 'controversial' only because we all KNOW that milk is nutritious, don't we - but then, who told us that in the first place?

Even if you rely on research and official guidelines for nutritional information, the industry body octopus will have influenced what information you can find. The distortion of nutrition science is a big and complex topic. 

If you want to read more, you will find a few references at the end of Part 2.

Those industry body octopus arms really are everywhere.

In a promising sign, academics have now researched the influence of food industry bodies and exactly how their various arms infiltrate and distort public nutrition information and policy. 

A study in 2016 confirmed the food industry had considerably greater direct access to government policy officers than nutrition professionals did. What an alarming finding!

Source: Marty Gabel

The wily octopus bent on its own survival provides a great metaphor for the way the food industry bodies infiltrates research and policy. No offence to octopus lovers; I think they are really amazing and wonderful creatures too. In their place.

But my metaphor needs to place the food industry octopus in its broader context. A whole fish tank of factors also influence how we think about food and nutrition.

In Part 2, I look at what else is swimming in the fish tank with the food industry octopuses. And I sharpen my pencil for a fish tank drawing.

Image credits, all used under Creative Commons Licence

1. Octopus on head of William King: Jonathan Crow at https://www.jonathan-crow.com/veeptopus (not specified)
2. Sugar: Ayelie (Editor at Large) from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sugar-01.jpg (CC BY-NC)
3. Pouring wine: Binge Drinking-CDC Vital Signs-January 2012 (Public Domain) at https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20806698
4. Milk: Stefan Kühn at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Milk_glass.jpg  (CC BY-SA)
5. Octopus in tank: Marty Gabel at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fiskadoro/3598665543 (CC BY-NC-ND)