Not on the label by Felicity Lawrence, Penguin, £7.99
Most of us are probably aware that our food is not quite what it’s cracked up to be, even if it’s not all junk food. But in this book, the Guardian’s consumer affairs correspondent shows just how unhealthy much of what we eat is and why it gets to be that way.
One important point made relates to the dominant position of the supermarkets, especially the large chains. They can squeeze the profits of the companies who produce the food, sometimes asking suppliers to pay to have their products on the shelves or in some prominent position. In addition they effectively dictate what we can buy, or at least what range of goods we can choose from when we shop. With their absurd ideas about the kind of food that is acceptable to consumers – such as specific sizes of green beans or Brussels sprouts – they cause an awful lot of decent food to go to waste.
Their enormous distribution centres are not real warehouses, since food is only kept in them for short periods: the idea is that it is delivered and then sent across the country to stores in as rapid a turnover as possible, leading to vast numbers of lorries speeding up and down the motorways. And, according to Lawrence, there is evidence that the more miles fruit and veg travels, the lower its vitamin content. Such constant replenishment of the distribution centres relies heavily on casual labour, often undertaken at rock-bottom rates in appalling conditions by migrant workers, a supply of labour that can be turned on and off like a tap, as the supermarkets constantly change their demands for food. It is a workforce that ranges from Portuguese workers in East Anglia to Moroccans in Spain.
A further consequence of the retailers’ power is that the suppliers work on decreasing profit margins, and often cannot even afford to get rid of waste (such as diseased carcasses) properly. Chicken factories are now enormous production lines, where a single infected bird can cause thousands to become contaminated with campylobacter. Unwanted skin is made into chicken nuggets, while chicken for sandwiches and ready meals is commonly adulterated with water (plus various additives to keep the water in, including cow waste).
Returning to supermarkets, you may have been impressed by the ‘in-store’ bakeries that a lot of them have. In fact, many of these just finish off bread that has been made and partially baked elsewhere. White sliced bread is often sold at a loss, to get people into the shops. Most of it is made by the thoroughly nasty-sounding Chorley-wood bread process, which involves air and water being added to the dough, plus fats to stop the bread collapsing. Ready meals, which have massively increased in popularity over the last few years, are high in processed fats, sugars and starch. Modified starch also plays a big part in low-fat yoghurts, which are not as healthy as they sound. Did you know that a “strawberry-flavoured” yoghurt has at least some strawberry content, but a “strawberry-flavour” yoghurt does not?
The kind of food available to workers has changed dramatically over the last few decades, with curries and pastas that were not previously available now regularly finding their way to our gullets. But that certainly does not mean that people now eat better and more healthily. Lawrence makes it clear that considerations of profit are what drive the way the food industry works. Her suggestion is to shop on three principles: local, seasonal and direct. But a better answer is to establish a system of society where food is produced for need not profit.
Paul Bennett
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