What's The Most Important Thing Food Labels Should Tell Us?

[CrossCuT]

I found this article pretty interesting; added some view points you dont often hear when it comes to the food labeling discussions.

 

Ive havent always been this way, but failed New Years resolution after failed New Years resolution is finally rubbed off on me in my attempts to be more active and health conscious. So naturally amidst all the debate about GMO food labeling (which surprisingly wasnt mentioned much in this article) and the various other things, this article seemed like a fun read. 

 

What I found most interesting was that the health and environment experts that were interviewed mentioned concerns that I hadnt really put a lot of thought into. Labels in general can be pretty misleading for instance the difference between Decaff and Caffeine free. A lot of marketing shinanigans go into place in every industry when it comes to labeling products. But what is the most important to us?

 

For me its the nutrition. I echoed the concern that one of the interviewees had:

 

"Twenty years ago, we led the effort to get nutrition facts labels on foods," Jacobson says. "Now they're there. Everybody loves them. But they haven't had much impact on the American diet."

So Jacobson now believes we don't need more fine print about sodium and sugar. We need something that grabs people's attention. "A label that would spur them to choose healthier foods."

Jacobson wants to put some sort of symbol, or number, right on the front of the package, that gives food a grade. You'd give food credit for all the good stuff in it, such as vitamins and minerals. You'd take away points for trans fat, salt, saturated fat, "and come up with a red dot, or the number 50, or whatever."

 

But there were other concerns involving environment impact such as deforestation, water use, and fertilizer run off leading to 

eutrophication of our waterways and key ecosystems. Should there be labels with this information?

 

"The veggies from your favorite Campbell's soup have causes fishies to die" or "An entire forest was chopped down to plant the bananas trees where your bananas came from"

 

 

There are also concerns over labor:

 

"I just want to know that folks are getting paid a basic living wage," says writer Tracie McMillan. For her book, The American Way of Eating, McMillan went undercover and worked in the vegetable fields of California.

There are field workers who don't even earn a minimum wage, she says. Some workers get cheated out of their pay.

People have worried about this sort of thing with imported food, she said. It led to Fair Trade coffee and bananas, "and the presumption was, you didn't need something like that for the U.S., because we had labor laws that were enforced enough that anything in the U.S. would have been produced under [acceptable] labor conditions. And that's unfortunately no longer the case," McMillan says.

 

 

So whats important to everyone else?

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/11/14/245225365/whats-the-most-important-thing-food-labels-should-tell-us?utm_content=socialflow&utm_campaign=nprfacebook&utm_source=npr&utm_medium=facebook

[Era Might]

I mainly look at sodium and fat. I'm not fanatical about counting calories, etc. I just try to keep the bad stuff at a minimum, and eat in moderation. Otherwise, I just eat whatever I want.

[CrossCuT]

Would the other factors mention ever deter you from purchasing a product if it were labeled? Such as poor treatment of workers and under minimum wage pay?

[Era Might]

Would the other factors mention ever deter you from purchasing a product if it were labeled? Such as poor treatment of workers and under minimum wage pay?

 

Probably not. Those are subjective social and political factors. Calorie content, sodium, fat, etc. are objective scientific facts.

[CrossCuT]

I know, but I was just wondering if there was a label with a grade or something on it that ranked the company's treatment of their employees and that grade was a D- or something, would you feel ok supporting said company by purchasing their product?

[blazeingstar]

Probably not. Those are subjective social and political factors. Calorie content, sodium, fat, etc. are objective scientific facts.

 

I agree with Era.  Processed food might get higher ratings because the workers were paid an american minimum wage of $7 per hour.  Something like bananas from "random developing country" might get a very low score because they were paid a wage of $3 an day.  However in America even a full time minimum wage job isn't really a living wage whereas people in "random developing country" are fairly well off with $3 a day....something more akin to $18 an hour in America which we all know factory workers aren't getting.

[CrossCuT]

Im not arguing what is and isnt fair pay, Im just asking if for whatever reason they were paid very poorly and it was labeled on the company's food, would you still buy it?

[blazeingstar]

I know, but I was just wondering if there was a label with a grade or something on it that ranked the company's treatment of their employees and that grade was a D- or something, would you feel ok supporting said company by purchasing their product?

 

Who is giving the survey though and what is it being compared to?  Workers in Chilie have a far different idea of an ideal work day than the dutch.

[CrossCuT]

Nevermind. I guess it was a hard question to ask.

[blazeingstar]

Im not arguing what is and isnt fair pay, Im just asking if for whatever reason they were paid very poorly and it was labeled on the company's food, would you still buy it?

 

Again who gets to decide what is "fair" and what is being paid "poorly"?  In the US, Boston, San Fran, and NYC you literally cannot live on $8.  You would live in a tiny, cramped aparment that you share with a bad landlord in a bad neighborhood. 

 

 However, in Georgia you could potentially own a home!  

 

Who gets to decide what being paid "poorly" is?   Again, I'd have more empathy for the $8per hour factory worker in NYC than the $8 a day factory worker in Indonesia.

[CrossCuT]

Youre thinking way to hard, its a pretty straight forward question. Lets pretend each food is rated by the standards from which whatever country the workers come from. Does that help?

 

Would you buy a food if the rating was low for their treatment and/or pay?

Edited November 15, 2013 by CrossCuT

[blazeingstar]

Youre thinking way to hard, its a pretty straight forward question. Lets pretend each food is rated by the standards from which whatever country the workers come from. Does that help?

 

Would you buy a food if the rating was low for their treatment and/or pay?

 

No, because I wouldn't trust it.  way too subjective.

[CrossCuT]

This is all hypothetical Blazingstar. Lets pretend there is a very sound system for giving out ratings of worker treatment that took into account all of the things you mentioned and rated items appropriately. 

Youre saying this WOULD be something that would prevent you from buying a product if you noticed a particular company treated their workers poorly based on said hypothetical rating system?

[Era Might]

Youre thinking way to hard, its a pretty straight forward question. Lets pretend each food is rated by the standards from which whatever country the workers come from. Does that help?

 

Would you buy a food if the rating was low for their treatment and/or pay?

 

It wouldn't work as a government rating like the FDA, but potentially it could work as a private rating organization, or as a social media rating system.

[blazeingstar]

This is all hypothetical Blazingstar. Lets pretend there is a very sound system for giving out ratings of worker treatment that took into account all of the things you mentioned and rated items appropriately. 

Youre saying this WOULD be something that would prevent you from buying a product if you noticed a particular company treated their workers poorly based on said hypothetical rating system?

 

I find your hypotheticals preposterous though.  And you have to add in so many elements the math becomes insane.  What if the people who made the flour were treated wonderfully but the people who made the paper bag it's in were trafficed slaves?  What if the spagetti manufacturer treated the everyone well but got eggs from a brutalized chickens and poor farmers?  What if you had the perfect ceral maker, putting it into a well produced box but then put it on a cargo ship, train and then truck in which all the workers earned less than minimum wage and worked insane hours?

 

Then on top of all that you wind up at a distribution center and at individual supermarkets.  Is it worth more from HY-VEE, Market Basket, Wegmans, Harris Teeter, Trader Jo's and Publix because THEY treat their employees well?