The retail food market is a trillion dollar-a-year business, where food manufacturers spend billions of dollars to sell their products. Whether through TV advertisements, product placements, or event sponsorships, food companies have become extremely successful at convincing us that their foods will make us happy, hip, or healthy. The manipulation of our beliefs about processed food through advertising, marketing, or packaging is so widespread, it has been given the term leanwashing. Like the political term “whitewashing”, food manufacturers spin their messages in a way that exaggerates the health benefits or misleads consumers on the health benefits of their products. Two of the most widely used leanwashing terms used on packaged foods are ‘natural’ and ‘wholegrain’. In Canada, federal government regulations require food products labeled as containing ‘natural’ ingredients to meet two requirements.
Read more in this edition of FarmFolk CityFolk Magazine.
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