Diet Pepsi is removing aspartame, Ben and Jerry’s and Chipotle are removing GMOs. Pepsi dropping high fructose corn syrup in some of their drinks, and Clif’s Luna Bars going gluten-free. To that we could add a long list of others such as Cheerios dropping GMOs, many milk brands years ago dropping rBST, etc.
It’s difficult to know what to make of these moves. On the one hand, we ought to champion consumer freedom and sovereignty. Whatever one might think about the “power” of Big Food, these examples clearly show food companies willing to bend over backwards to meet customer demands. That, in principle, is a good thing.
The darker side of the story is that many consumers have beliefs about food ingredients that don’t comport with the best scientific information we have available. As a result, food companies are making a variety of cost-increasing changes that only convey perceived (but not real) health benefits to consumers.
The longer-run potential problem for food companies is that they may inadvertently be fostering a climate of distrust. Rather than creatively defending use of ingredient X and taking the opportunity to talk about the science, their moves come across as an admission of some sort of guilt: Oh, you caught us! You found out we use X. Now, we’ll now remove it. All the while, we’ll donate millions to causes that promote X or prevent labeling of X, while offering brands that promote the absence of X. It’s little wonder people get confused, lose trust, and question integrity.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Consumer Sovereignty vs. Scientific Integrity
