July 2020

Big Food is popularizing the idea of processed food and snacking all day. These habits are hard to break and are disrupting traditional eating habits. Some health experts have lumped processed food in with tobacco and drug addictions. It can cause just as harmful side effects, however food is necessary for life, making it arguably more dangerous (“PLoS”).

In 2009, obesity in Brazil was 14% , 34% in the U.S., and 24% in the U.K. These numbers are growing rapidly (Monteiro and Cannon). Before Big Food popularized constant snacking on foods with little to no nutritional value, obesity was not nearly the problem it is today. These companies dismiss their contribution to the increasing obesity rates, saying it is a personal choice (“PLoS”). These are the same companies that are targeting advertisements toward kids very similarly to the tobacco industry which is now controlled by government regulations.

Many Big Food brands are also reformulating products so they can advertise them as “healthy”. They rework the formula to have less sodium or trans fat, but they do not actually increase the nutritional value of the product (Monteiro and Cannon). They use the cheapest parts of whole foods and add preservatives and other additives that increase shelf life. Their products trick your body into thinking you are getting whole foods (Monteiro and Cannon). These companies are more worried about making money than they are about public health.

Health experts say that the “saturation point” is when 60% of total calories are ultra-processed. In Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. this happened in 2010 (Monteiro and Cannon). Healthy food needs to make a comeback. Customers can not continue waiting for Big Food to change; it has gone on too long and the stakes are getting too high.

One study in 2000 showed that about 36,504 people died in South Africa due to an unhealthy amount of body fat and unhealthy diets. Research has shown that one simple fix could save many lives — “reducing the salt content in bread alone could prevent 6,500 deaths”, yet Big Food will not make the switch (Igumbor et al). How many lives will it take for them to change? Big Food is so far removed from their customers that they do not directly see the effects of their products. Customers cannot trust them.

Big Food claims that it is making food available, however “one billion people on the planet are hungry while two billion are obese or overweight” (“PLoS”). This means that Big Food is not doing the one thing they claim to do, bring food to people who otherwise would go unfed. Instead they are making food more appealing to people who can afford home-cooked meals. They are hooking them on processed food addictions. 

Everytime customers buy something, they are casting their vote. When a customer buys from a Big Food company, it tells them that they support their business. Customers need to become more aware of what they are buying and supporting. Do they know that when they buy from a Big Food company, they are supporting an increase in plastic pollution, the downfall of local business, and the corruption of traditional eating habits?

While Big Food dominates the food environment, the power is in the consumers’ hands. If consumers start supporting eco-friendly, healthy, local businesses, Big Food has to adapt or go out of business. Society needs to think about how they want to cast their votes. We should invest our money in the future. If we continue to let Big Food dominate, we are accepting a future littered with plastic, a future without glaciers, a future with growing numbers of health concerns, a future without local businesses and variety in our supermarkets. We can eliminate worldwide problems society is facing by boycotting Big Food.