Functional Foods as a silver bullet?

Transcription

1 Functional Foods as a silver bullet? for IFSTAL January 28, 2017 Jane Dixon Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor Centre for Food Policy City, University of London 1

2 Industrially produced and marketed protective foods Functional foods (industrially processed C20th): A nutritionenhanced food, advertised as having evidence-based health promoting properties With food shortages of World War 2, the British fortified margarine and flour with vitamins A, D and calcium: the same micronutrients removed in the previous 50 years through industrial processes (Lawrence and Worsley 2007; Winson 2013)

3 Made possible by socio-technical & cultural economy processes Involves 3 sub-processes: the enumeration, enrichment and promotion of single foods and national food supplies in terms of a nutrient values profile (energy, protein, fats etc.) Nutritionalisation, a cultural economy process based on: the co-option of nutrition science for attaching nutritional properties to health status and foods (Dixon 2009). the rise of the nutricentric citizen - or a highly individualised approach to food...(scrinis 2013). A life lived through bio-markers (Scrinis 2007): Good and bad cholesterol, Blood Pressure, Blood Sugar, GI, BMI, HWR 3

4 Not new: 150 year evolution Mid 1800s: isolation of the role of protein, and a view that protein was the master nutrient 1880s: acceptance that the calorie was an effective metric for human energy requirements 1912: the idea of protective foods following the 1912 application of the term vitamine (Dixon 2009) 4

5 Impetus for functional foods/phoods 3 key processes have degraded food/removed nutrients: simplification, adulteration & speeding up of processing (Winson 2013) Developed world s concern with longevity and increased corporeal performance Developing world s desire to curb diseases caused by micro-nutrient deficiencies Food companies need for competitive advantage (Scrinis 2016) Healthy convenience : people can consume more in the present and nullify the risks through future acts of consumption (Dixon 2009)

6 Recent manifestations: healthy convenience to life-saving Yakult to aid digestion/nestle s LCI Yoghurt: to boost the immune system Folate enriched cereals and bread Cholesterol lowering margarines Alongside micro-nutrient hunger alleviation Vitamin A enriched rice: Golden Rice

7 Multiple sources of resistance Reaction against dietary disembedding (Guthman 2011; Scrinis 2013) Reaction against medicinal eating and the nutrition cacophony (Mudry 2006; Guthman 2011) Critiques of the corporate dominance of food systems (McMichael P, 2005; Winson 2013; Levenstein 1996) Reaction from within medical and nutrition science (Cannon & Leitzmann 2005; McMichael A, 2005) Social movement pressure for the ecological reembedding of diets (Friedmann 2005)

8 Implications for food and nutrition regulation Complicating the product reformulation narrative removing additives and inserting additives Health claims, nutrition education & dietary guidelines Food advertising Free trade in foods and their ingredients: standards harmonisation Industry concentration of food and pharma companies Professional association ethics: cash for endorsement Promoting dietary bio-diversity, relative pricing of fresh vs processed foods, & consumer acceptance

9 References Cannon, G., &. Leitzmann, C The new nutrition science. Public Health Nutrition 8 (6A): Dixon, J., and Banwell, C Reembedding trust: unravelling the construction of modern diets, Critical Public Health, 14 (2): Dixon, J., Hinde, S. and Banwell, C Obesity, convenience and phood, British Food Journal, 108 (8): Dixon, J., Donati, K., Pike, L. and Hattersley, L Functional foods and urban agriculture: two responses to climate change related food insecurity, NSW Public Health Bulletin, 20 (1-2): Dixon, J From the imperial to the empty calorie: how nutrition relations underpin food regime transitions, Agriculture and Human Values, 26 (4): Dixon, J Critical nutrition studies within critical agrarian studies: A review and analysis, Journal of Peasant Studies Friedmann, H From colonialism to green capitalism: Social movements and emergence of food regimes. In New directions in the sociology of global development, ed. F. Buttel and P. McMichael, Oxford: Elsevier. Guthman, J Weighing In. Obesity, food justice, and the limits of capitalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Levenstein, H The politics of nutrition in North America, Neuroscience and Behavioural Reviews 20 (1):

10 References (contd) McKeown, T The role of medicine. Oxford: Basil Blackwell McMichael, A Integrating nutrition with ecology: Balancing the health of humans and biosphere. Public Health Nutrition 8 (6A): McMichael, P Global development and the corporate food regime. In New directions in the sociology of global development, ed. F. Buttel and P. McMichael, Oxford: Elsevier. Mudry, J Quantifying an American eater: Early USDA food guidance, and a language of numbers. Food, Culture and Society 9 (1): Scrinis, G On the ideology of nutritionism. Gastronomica, 8(1), pp Scrinis, G Nutritionism: The science and politics of dietary advice. New York: Columbia University Press. Scrinis, G. & Clapp, J Reformulation, fortification and functionalization: Big Food corporations nutritional engineering, Journal of Peasant Studies 43 (1):17-37 Winson, A. (2013) The industrial diet: The degradation of food and the struggle for healthy eating. UBC Press. 10