Nutrition is a wonderful playground for people who want to manipulate fear. We need food to live, yet can be poisoned by eating the wrong things. Learning from others which foods are safe and which are dangerous was essential to our survival in the days before grocery stores. We are primed to react to scares about food.
The Food Babe is one example. She sells meal plans and endorses superfood supplements, but positions herself as an “investigator” of the dangers in foods. The tactic, it seems, is to make people feel that the world is so full of dangerous foods that they better pay for her meal plans that specify what she believes is safe to eat.
But behind the unified front (all processed food is dangerous!) lies a tangled web of factoids. Some are clearly not true, like her claims about GMOs. All this misinformation is a version of the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt tactic that’s been recognized as a marketing tool in other contexts.
Countering this misinformation is, I think, an important but overlooked target for public health. Education helps: many of the misconceptions about GMOs can be overcome once you actually understand what genetic modification is—although it’s a tricky subject. In the meantime, maybe this message will appeal: when you hear somebody trying to scare you about food, ask what they’re selling. If you distrust Big Ag and Big Pharma, you won’t find any better treatment from Big Juice.
Read the full, original article: Why it’s so easy to believe our food is toxic
