Why We’ll Never Eat The Same Way Again:
What happens when food science, culture, the middle class, and politics get entangled
Food. Health. Wealth. At Olson Zaltman, I’ve studied these topics for over a decade. I’ve interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people specifically about food; how they feel about it, their cravings, their guilt, their intentions and motivations, their rituals and behaviors, their relationship with their bodies. I’ve stood in the homes of people, as an ethnographer, understanding the meaning of their pantry and just why that box of oatmeal is placed on the top shelf. Sounds boring, right? Trust me, it’s not; uncovering the why behind these questions is fascinating and unlocks a great understanding about health, food and wealth. It’s a deeply personal topic — and one of my favorites.
In my personal life, I’ve also dabbled in the various foodie trends du jour: grain free, vegan, dairy free, flexitarian, minimalism, Whole30… I even bought not just one, but both of Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbooks (don’t judge: this delicious dish is a staple in my home.) The constant change in American diets is fascinating. Our relationship with fats, proteins and carbs is ever evolving as the science is constantly changing. Sugar, salt, fat… one day bad for you, the next day we find it has some redeeming value. Look at ghee, clarified butter in India: basically ghee is what you’re left with when you skim the cream off and all that’s left is the pure, pure fat. You would think it would come with a black box warning on it, right? Wrong. In some foodie circles, it’s touted as a health food. Now, you can even find it on mass market shelves, commercially made by big companies like Organic Valley.
Yes, friends, these are confusing times we’re living in. What does healthy even mean anymore?
Eating “right” is important, even though “right” is ever changing. What we at Olson Zaltman know is that it’s difficult, if not impossible, for everyone to eat a healthy diet.
We worked with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation when they launched a major bipartisan commission on the issue of health disparities. Facing enormous political gridlock, they needed a better understanding of how Democrats and Republicans viewed the issue. We conducted ZMET® interviews with Democratic and Republican legislative staffers and health policy experts regarding their “thoughts and feelings about the differences in the health of Americans, and the sources of those differences.”
What we found was fascinating:
Democrats believe poor levels of health arise from a complex system of social factors that trap low-income people in communities where it is impossible for them to achieve better health. This inequality is unjust, and the government should attempt to “level the playing field.”
Republicans believe that health is a matter of making good life choices, but that in some communities inadequate resources make those choices very difficult. It’s not reducing inequality that matters, it’s “raising the bottom” to make those choices easier.
What RWJF was able to do was create messages that resonate across the political spectrum. They stopped using the language of inequality in their communications, and instead began using journey metaphors, which appealed to both Republicans and Democrats. The optimized tagline, “Health starts where we live, learn, work and play” has helped RWJF gain bipartisan support for initiatives in areas such as childhood obesity, access to health care, and healthy family eating, and the ZMET® study has become a landmark case in social policy circles.
Personally, what I ultimately learned from conducting some of those interviews was that, sadly, depending on where you live, finding an apple can be really, really hard — if not downright impossible.
This brings me to my final point, as we triangulate all these trends:
The Trump administration has proposed a 20% sales tax on all imported goods from Mexico to pay for the wall. Politics aside, what hasn’t been adequately discussed is how this impacts the nation’s health, and conversely, what this means for the bottom line for the CPG food industry.
Let’s put some real numbers behind this: The U.S. imported $21 billion of food and drinks from Mexico in 2015, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Yes, this will impact how we all eat and here’s why: Overall, a wide range of fresh fruits and vegetables would potentially become more expensive or scarce if an import tax goes into effect.
Already, healthy food is difficult to find in lower-income neighborhoods and communities. We are already pre-disposed to believe that messages of food and their goodness will be in constant flux. I wonder: Will the definitions of healthy and unhealthy disappear altogether? Is the future of American diets like that of Warren Buffet? He infamously starts each morning with McDonalds, and then downs Oreos, potato chips, ice cream and about five Coca-Colas each day. His rationale: “I checked the actuarial tables, and the lowest death rate is among six-year-olds. So I decided to eat like a six-year-old.”
I don’t have the answers. All I can hypothesize is that perhaps for the first time since the the invention of the microwave in the 1950s, the way we eat is going change in a huge way.
