Your buying behavior influences
The food system needs to be overhauled, says Jaap Seidell, professor of Nutrition and Health at VU University Amsterdam. He wrote the book ‘Other costs’ with psychologist Jutka Halberstadt. In the podcast Healthy Conversation, he passionately tells how society needs to change radically. This change is primarily the task of the government, health insurers and the food industry. However, as a consumer you can also do a lot yourself. Five tips.
As humans, we seem like just such a small cog in the big system. It can be disheartening if you feel that your efforts towards a healthier food system are not paying off. Yet as a consumer you make choices every day. And those choices have an impact, precisely because there are so many of us. So you definitely have influence! There are five main ways you can exert influence.
1. Vote with your fork
The food industry likes to make products that provide a lot of calories for as little money as possible. These are called the ‘ultraprocessed foods’. Examples are snacks, biscuits, sweets, soft drinks, pizzas, breakfast cereals and desserts. If you as a consumer do not buy these products from now on, this has two major advantages. First, your diet will be much healthier. Second, you send a signal to manufacturers that their products are less popular. This is called ‘voting with your fork’ in the book: your buying behavior has an influence.
2. Cook yourself
In countries like Italy and Portugal, residents only get 10 to 13 percent of their calories from ultra-processed products. For the Germans this is already 46 percent, and it is expected to be something like that for the Netherlands. If you prepare your meals and snacks yourself, from raw ingredients, the proportion of ultra-processed products in your diet naturally decreases. You can cook yourself within fifteen minutes. But you can also decide to give food the more attention it deserves and to consciously make time for cooking and meals. After all, food also has an important social function and that is in danger of disappearing more and more, say the authors of ‘Other costs‘. And that brings us straight to the third way you can exert influence:
3. Raise your (grand) children with a love for food
Do you have (grand)children? Then you know: parenting is above all setting a good example. If you spend little time cooking and if you keep succumbing to the temptations of ultra-processed products, your kids will see it and eventually imitate it. When you cook with love and pleasure, and involve your children, it is a lesson they will never forget. It counts for everything: also for the snacks you bring to school, baking pancakes yourself, the herbs you have on your balcony or the pleasure with which you eat your vegetables yourself. And of course, every child goes through a phase where they rebel against your good intentions. Then they hang out at a fast food chain or exchange their bread for frikandel sandwiches and energy drinks at the supermarket. But that’s a phase. In the end, they usually return to the eating habits in your family. And don’t you have children, but do you think this is an important point? Perhaps you can contribute by helping in a school garden or by teaching cooking at a school.
4. Become empowered
As citizens, we can become empowered about our food system. We can file a complaint or ask questions if the supermarket has the chocolate or the fried chicken on offer again. You can also ask your health insurer why there is only 3 hours of dietary advice in the package. You can file a complaint with the manufacturer who puts ‘snag sugar’ in its products. We can send letters to the newspaper. We can tackle the school policy for drinks and snacks. We can try to make the canteen offer at work healthier and more sustainable. There are so many places where you can make your voice heard!
5. Get into the voting booth
Finally, we can also vote in the voting booth, in local, provincial and national elections. Look for a party that is committed to a fair food system and that pursues real changes for the long term. You do your own health, the future of your children and our planet a great pleasure.
The podcast with Jaap Seidell can be heard below.
