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The food sector wants to sell us more for greater profits – but we need to consume less

For the first time in human history our biggest killers are not pathogens, at least in the Western world, but illnesses created by poor diet and the drive to consume more calories.

ALMOST ALL BUSINESS people and economic pundits feel obliged to start a discussion with the premise that the sole function of a business is to make a profit. It’s said with such regularity that we never question it. But doth the lady protest too much? The drive to make money, purely for the sake of it, is now the established economic hegemony.

This view is stated at the outset, as it then becomes the premise for all economic policy discussions. Yet there are many successful businesses, past and present, who saw their efforts to make profit as something indelibly linked with other key objectives.

In the past, some businesses led the way in worker welfare

From the early dreams of Anita Roddick’s Body Shop, which revolutionised ethical consumerism, to the many Quaker confectionary families like Fry’s, Cadbury’s and Rowntree’s, who had an entirely different view of the role of their business. Indeed our own Guinness family led the way in worker welfare from the provision of healthcare, housing, education and pensions so that that they, and others, were part of the forces which helped usher in the welfare state. Can you imagine Ryanair helping to deliver such social change? Or any major international business today?

Certainly many sign up to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes but these are more window dressing than core beliefs. More than a century and a half before the big players started sticking Fair Trade logos on their packaging the early Cadbury family were ethically sourcing cocoa from farmers in West Africa. Today, of course Cadbury has been long adopted by the corporate giants, it’s most recent step-mother being Mondelez International.

The problem with the drive for exponentially growing profits in the food sector has come face to face with an immovable fact: food companies need to sell us more food in order to make a profit, even though we need to consume less in order to live long, healthy lives. Neither will our already creaking national health services be able to mange the explosion in ill-health.

Poor diet and the drive to consume more calories are killing us

For the first time in human history the biggest human killers are not pathogens, the biggest human killer, at least in the Western world, are the illnesses created by poverty, poor diet and the drive to consume more calories. Cardiovascular disease is responsible for more than half all deaths across Europe yet, according to WHO, 80% of these deaths are preventable.

A 2014 Lancet survey revealed that 26.5% of women in Ireland under 20 years of age are overweight or obese. That figure falls to 16% for men under 20, though 66% of Irish men over 20 are obese or overweight. Commenting on the research Prof Klim Mc Pherson of Oxford University said that: “BMI needs to return to what it was 30 years ago. In the UK this would require a reduction in food consumption of 8%, or €8.7 billion per year to the food sector.”

But that is not even the full picture, the full picture is worse. The high obesity levels amongst women are a particular concern as the obesity is also a function of high calorific food which is nutritionally shallow. This low nutritional diet has now had a significant perinatal impact, so children are now being born with ‘built-in’ cardiovascular weaknesses. So even if they attempt to live the healthiest of lives their health has already been compromised in the womb. According to the Irish Heart Foundation obesity and food poverty are costing us €1.13 billion per annum.

Nobody just wants to be prosperous anymore – they want to be a billionaire

But what are the solutions? There are plenty: from a radical re-education around food knowledge; to junk food taxes; and subsidies for local fruit and vegetables. But this will not sit well with major food businesses who will still need to produce more calories for us to consume. It’s a fundamental challenge not just to their core business but the commonly held view of why you would go into business in the first place. Nobody just wants to be prosperous anymore, they want to be a billionaire.

According to Kantar Worldpanel we spent €1.8 billion on groceries in 2012. What would this 8% reduction in food consumption look like in Ireland to get our BMI back to 1980s levels? At a rough estimate (excluding the smaller traders not in Kantor research) it could mean shaving €145 million off the profits of major food producers. This is considerably less than our annual obesity and food poverty costs of €1.13 billion, estimated by UCC research in 2012. But those costs are set to rise and as we already struggle to keep our health bill in check we need some long-term vision.

Our present food policies are killing us early, disfiguring the life-long health of the yet-to-be-born and ignoring the real health and environmental costs of food production profits. It’s time to start looking again at some core human endeavours, which are in need of longer term planning beyond the vagaries of the political cycle. The concept of stewardship needs to be injected into the capitalist model of the economy. We need to shift towards qualitative economic growth models, at least for some sectors, rather than raw quantitative growth. Otherwise we are just moving calories around the menu on the Titanic.

Ross Golden-Bannon is a restaurant critic and food writer. You can find more of his musings on rossgoldenbannon.com or follow him on Twitter @Goldenshots

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21 Comments
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    Mute Sinead Hanley
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:25 PM

    I think the Hot Deli counters in our local shops are bad news for our waistlines and arteries. They are full of stodgy food and I think we are not aware of the calories in the average breakfast/chicken roll or sausage roll.. Supermacs have put calorie content on their menu.. Think its high time these delis did the same..

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    Mute Joanna
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:29 PM

    So much this. It’s hard to find a convenient healthy lunch on the go when even the deli salads are smothered in mayonnaise and god knows what else. But when people are hungry enough they’ll just eat whatever to get them through the day.

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    Mute Zeus Hendy
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:45 PM

    Well Joanne you have not been in my deli. We have options and the choice is yours not ours. what we put in your lunch. Don’t tar every deli with the same brush.

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    Mute KevinMunster
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    Jun 30th 2015, 5:15 PM

    make your own lunch

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    Mute Rashers Tierney
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:28 PM

    And this is news? The reality is that the greatest hope for the planet is that the overweening greed of the human species will result in its demise. This is a sad state of affairs is sad, but accurate nonetheless.

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    Mute Joanna
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:30 PM

    Humanity has reboot for a while.

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    Mute Joanna
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:30 PM

    ^needed a

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    Mute Big Yellow Crane
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:34 PM

    How’s it accurate if it’s not going to happen? The greatest hope for this planet is a renewable energy price that’s cheaper than fossil fuels, population stabilisation and the replacement of private material goods with digital products, pooled community resources and services. All of which are on the way. And a lot less meat eating.

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    Mute Zozzy Zozimus
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:51 PM

    Humanity reboot, eh? That particular omelette might be hard to make without breaking an awful lot of eggs.

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    Mute BlueSkyThinking
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    Jun 30th 2015, 3:12 PM

    I agree with the gist of this article. The cause of obesity is because there is just too much food around. Companies have even invented new mealtimes order to get us to buy more food. In my parents day it was “3 square meals a day”. Now we have the 11pm snack (which is useful to growing children but not for adults). In the last few years I’ve seen ads for “beat the 3pm slump” and more recently an ad for snickers “you’re not you when you’re hungry” which is basically telling us to snack between meals (this will just make you fat when 9 times out of 10 all you need is a glass of water/tea/coffee). However I do think there is a market for all this extra food we are producing: earths human population is growing by millions and at least in the medium term this is where the extra food should be going. Long term we need to curb population growth and then ultimately cap food production.

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    Mute BlueSkyThinking
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    Jun 30th 2015, 4:30 PM

    Just as a footnote, I stopped snacking between meals and lost a stone. Now I just have water or black tea/coffee. I did find my 11am tea break a handy time to eat fruit as part of my 5 a day but I figure that losing 2 inches off my waist is better for my health in the long run.

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    Mute Zozzy Zozimus
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    Jun 30th 2015, 2:04 PM

    There are some interesting points in this article, and I agree that we can probably do more to create a better food environment for ourselves, but there are many bold statements here that I don’t think stand up without a more evidence.

    In my opinion, the tendency for people to state their “food opinions” as “food facts” is a significant contributor to our unhealthy food environment. I can’t explain this tendency, but I know it exists because I experience it myself (and try to resist it).

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    Mute ChocSaltyBallz
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    Jun 30th 2015, 3:34 PM

    Look to Iceland the last mcDonalds closed down in 2008 they eat the least amount of processed food in the world and live nearly the longest put that alongside the the average Irish person boom we will be dropping like flies soon, there a couple of generations to go through before it gets ironed out but it can be reversed more thought less haste

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    Mute Nigel Fogarty
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    Jun 30th 2015, 6:31 PM

    Horse meat is a part of the staple diet in Iceland also. I think I will stick with the big mc

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    Mute GameOverMan
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    Jun 30th 2015, 3:31 PM

    Scary stuff… im glad i know my way round a kitchen. Even then its hard to cook fresh and maintain a regular healthy diet. Unhealthy options are too easy and too available. If you cant cook even basics, your at the mercy of these pigs… moderation is key. Its sickening to see the depths that corporations will go to to monopolise our basic needs. The Monsanto corporation are the begining of the end for an industry which is being taken from us.

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    Mute Ray Farrelly
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:16 PM

    Pay your water bill it won’t be long till your slim.

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    Mute Jay
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    Jun 30th 2015, 7:34 PM

    If I starve my child, it’s abuse. If I feed them rubbish nothing is done to prevent it. Personally, obesity is a quick solution to the pensions crisis we are facing into.

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    Mute Big Yellow Crane
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    Jun 30th 2015, 1:21 PM

    “We need to shift towards qualitative economic growth models, at least for some sectors, rather than raw quantitative growth”.

    Why? Quantitative Growth models just measure how fast we’re swapping money around and keeping everyone busy. If we buy and sell more non-physical goods – more theatre, more music, more hair cuts, more pony treks that’s all ok. If you want an additional measure for success in closing production loops it should be resource productivity – eg total energy produced / tons CO2 etc, not wishy-washy “qualitative” measures.

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    Mute Doogle Knows
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    Jun 30th 2015, 5:05 PM

    And it was new York New York
    She took his heart away….
    Sunscreen

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    Mute Supatra SYing
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    Jul 2nd 2015, 8:04 AM

    We always blame food providers how they provide “too much” or “unhealthy” food.
    I’d rather blame myself for eating them for I always have choices and yet – gimme them pizza, please!

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    Mute Pete Gibson
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    Jul 2nd 2015, 11:23 PM

    I wonder how many tens of thousands of Irish have died young because of the product produced by “our own Guinness”.
    On the other hand…
    Ryanair and other low cost airlines have contributed to a real social revolution by allowing cheap worldwide travel to ordinary folk. Ordinary people have joined the “Jet Set” which has once the preserve of the rich.
    No more “American Wakes”.

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