We Want To Know About Our Food
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January 15, 2010It seems we’re planning to eat ‘healthier’ in 2010, to look more closely at food labels and possibly visit more farmers’ markets.
Research has found around 75% of Australians are aiming to maintain or improve their health – we’re ‘cocooning’.
We are trying to make more informed choices, looking at the nutrients and ingredients in foods we buy.
This mindset also applies to alcohol with more than 25% of drinkers making choices with health considerations in mind.
Nutritional Labelling A Hot Topic Globally
48% of Australians compared with the global average of 44% say they routinely rely on labelling to help make decisions.
The dietary evils – sugar and fat – appear to have the greatest influence on our choices, with the link between diet and health emerging as the new villain. There is now an effort to raise awareness of the negative effect of salt on health.
A ‘Trust Void’
There is increased skepticism over product claims with less than one-in-four Australians thinking the general nutritional claims made by manufacturers are trustworthy….something to be addressed in 2010!
2009 A Tough Year
Food in 2009 held up well when compared with other sectors but it seems the 2009 ‘cocooning’ trends in food may stay with us in 2010.
In 2010….
How big is the cocooning trend I wonder? The concept of ‘paddock to plate’ DOES seem to be increasing in popularity with concern about fresh, chemical free food and food miles being very important to many market customers.
But there is a growing concern that not all food at farmers’ markets is local, that some particularly commercially orientated stallholders are buying up at central markets and using the local venues to source customers.
What a HUGE job, monitoring labelling AND Farmers’ Markets!
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The Victorian Farmers Market Association is rolling out an accreditation program which assesses farmers’ authenticity and ensures that producers manufacturing speciality goods are using local ingredients. Look out for the accreditation logo on display at many Farmers’ Market stalls to ensure you are buying the real deal.
I would like to know “how” our food has been grown. What has it been strayed with and how often. Have the seeds been chemically treated or have they used growth hormones? What has been used to fertilize the ground? Is it a GM crop? What has the food been washed in, or sprayed with, once it has been picked? How has it been ripened?
If the food has been cooked or “value added” I’d like to know how. What processes have been used. What else is in the food….additives, colourings, preservatives.
Are there any health effects from the packaging…eg BPA’s in plastics?
Re: Madeleine’s comments about all the background history of the food; I guess this is why a lot of people support the organic industry. We are organic farmers and all these issues, from fertilisers, to sprays, to seed sourcing and so on is monitored. The organic ethos is one of supporting a holistic system in the paddock and also with our packaging. Unfortunately the buyer doesn’t get all this detailed information with their purchase, you just need to trust that the organic certification does cover these issues! We do supply our veges at a farmer’s market in Brisbane, so I guess this is a good opportunity for buyers to be able to ask the growers all those questions about the produce.
At the moment I don’t think there are any restrictions from packaging in plastics, but the advice is to use sustainable packaging where possible. There are a lot of loopholes in the conventional labelling system that is quite sad, ie ingredients under a certain percentage aren’t required to be listed as additives, or the fact that MSG can be called a natural preservative, even though it is synthetically produced and has been known to causes reactions. Same for flavours that are ‘natural’ but are really artificially produced to taste natural.
On a slightly different tangent regarding labelling, I saw an Australian cocoa drink product that claimed it was 100% Australian – Australian owned, Australian produced etc, but I thought Australia doesn’t actually grow cocoa beans, in which case the bulk of the product is actually imported…. I don’t know how that hasn’t been pointed out as false advertising.