Changing our stubbornly ineffective food system: the lobster strategy
The Food System
There is a feeling among food security scholars and food activists that changing the food system is impossible. The vast number of problems is overwhelming: over consumption in rich countries, lack of access to nutritious food in poor countries, food waste around the globe, diets changing towards more energy-intensive foods that undermine agricultural sustainability, and on and on. Some of these problems persist despite huge improvements in agricultural yields as well as a reduction in the proportion of hungry people around the world. But improving yields, as desirable as it is, is no longer the sole solution. The complex array of problems can cause paralysis, because there isn’t a clear cut or silver bullet solution to fix the food system. Nonetheless, two common improvements seem to have reached consensus after rigorous scientific examination of the global food system: reducing food waste, and reducing ruminant meat consumption. Both of these changes would greatly decrease the negative impacts that our food system has on the environment, increase food availability, and improve overall human and planetary health.
The Nutrition transition
It has long been established that as economies develop and their populations become richer, they demand more calories and, in particular, more animal-based foods. And you can hardly blame them, animal-based foods are — to most palates — very tasty, and common knowledge says that they contain key nutrients in high densities. Our early hunter gatherer ancestors were shaped by evolution to love the tastes and flavours of animal-based foods, such as fat content, saltiness, and protein density, because they were naturally limited in the wilderness they lived in. But in our current food system, these protein and fat rich foods are now ubiquitous in the marketplace. It is common to hear that nutritious diets include animal-sourced foods. Furthermore, particular cuts of beef and lamb, as well as some fish species and seafood, are regarded as ‘delicacies’. But it hasn’t always been this way…
The Lobster
Take lobster as an example. It’s hard to believe that lobster was once a ‘poor man’s food’, mainly because it was so abundant, is a bottom sea feeder, and has a weird shape (think about it — they could be a dreadful creature in your nightmares). But, after some cunning chefs started serving it to well-off members of society, unaware of the low reputation of the crustacean, these customers started taking a like for it in Boston and New York, lobster became a status symbol and prices skyrocketed. Of course, lobster fisheries were not well-managed then, leading to sharp declines in lobster populations and even higher prices, further reinforcing its high status in the culinary world. The story of lobster’s rise to delicacy status is not the only one of its kind — there are several other cases that follow this pattern (e.g. caviar, monk fish, sushi, and quinoa) and most of the time a culturally constructed interpretation distorted the desirability of certain foods or diets, making them more ‘palatable’ to a larger number of consumers. Nowadays some people might find lobster tasty mainly because it’s expensive!
In the lobster example, there is a subset of the population that sets trends: famous chefs and their rich costumers. You might assume that these two groups specialize in animal-based dishes. However, in the current gastronomic context, highly educated and more wealthy members of society are starting to consume fewer beef products and follow plant-based diets. High-end restaurants are making radical changes in their menus betting on (or setting) this trend. This is a part of the nutrition transition not yet captured by the overwhelming amount of data on food consumption, mainly because most studies focus on lower incomes and it is difficult to capture information from very rich households. The places to capture this information are trend-setting restaurants and catering companies, as well as food purchases in the high end neighbourhoods of rich countries. If this fad becomes a wider trend and is sustained through time, it might signal the next important step of a nutrition transition. The rich in developing economies might also leapfrog to this diet preference, avoiding the planetary pitfalls of the animal-based “western” diet altogether.
How likely is it that the next step of the nutrition transition will be to plant-based foods? What could be done to ‘nudge’ people to shift diets in this direction? Turns out, there are a variety of factors that drive patterns in food choices:
- Biological determinants such as hunger, appetite, and taste
- Economic determinants such as cost, income, and availability
- Physical determinants such as access, education, skills (e.g. cooking) and time
- Social determinants such as culture, family, peers and meal patterns
- Psychological determinants such as mood, stress and guilt
- Attitudes, beliefs and knowledge about food
The Lobster example shows that in some cases social context and setting can overcome other more innate drivers. And given that our neurological reward system evolved in a time of relative scarcity of fat-rich, sweet, and/or salty foods, it is a very tall order to expect people not to want to consume these in excess, especially when healthy alternatives are not accessible. We need to make the alternatives available and trigger the other determinants that can counter the force of our nomadic past!
The high-end food scene is driven by a dynamic feedback between the innovation of famous chefs and the desires of high paying customers. High-end restaurants will play an important role in determining the next fad and there are now several certification schemes that respond to the growing consumer demand for sustainable food and sustainable reputation coveted by restaurants and food catering services. There is a leverage point here that, if considered and moved in the right direction, could have long term positive consequences on the sustainability of the food system.
