False sense of safety

When we hear the words ‘food safety’, we think of harmful bacteria that can make us (critically) ill – and no one enjoys spending days on end worshipping the ‘porcelain god’. But, apart from bacteria, our food can contain other things that also make it unsafe to eat: additives that consumers don’t initially realise could be bad for them; additives that have been purposefully included in products.

I don’t want to talk about E numbers because there is enough squabbling about them already, plus those kinds of additives really aren’t the biggest problem. Instead, I want to talk about ingredients that we all find completely normal: sugar and salt. 

In essence, sugar and salt are not unsafe but, in the quantities that we consume them, they are actually considerably dangerous in the long term. Diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and a number of other afflictions that are clearly food-related have been close to the top of the list of the most common causes of death for years.

That little is being done about this seems to be due to the fact that too many major industries have too much to gain in the existing scenario. For example, the sugar lobby has reached grotesque proportions that we previously saw only in the tobacco industry. The pharmaceutical industry benefits from the current situation too, since sick people generate profits. In the meantime, our healthcare costs are spiralling out of control. There are of course numerous worthy initiatives – companies that really are trying to do things better – but generally speaking there has been little improvement. Many food manufacturers continue to add large amounts of sugar and salt to products to make them more appealing and hence sell more.

The question is: if this trend can be reversed (and let us please hope that it can), who or what is going to bring about that reversal? Who or what will make the difference? Will it be a sugar tax? Some kind of logo on the packaging? A stark warning, like we see on cigarette packets? Or are we finally going to start working, all together, on real solutions?
 

Dennis Favier is a professional food designer and creative director at innovation company TOP bv which translates technological innovations into interesting applications.