Processed Foods, Nutritionism and Food Corporations

• In Event: Diversifying Agri-food STS Scholarship Across Transnational Borders I

Abstract

Highly processed foods have come under increased scientific and policy scrutiny for their contribution to poor dietary patterns and health outcomes. But a debate now rages between nutrition experts as to how best to analyse and classify processed foods. On the one hand, within the dominant paradigm of what I call nutritionism, processed foods are reductively understood in terms of their nutrient profile, and particularly in terms of levels of single nutrients such as sodium, sugars, saturated fats and energy. This nutricentric paradigm also frames the understanding of the body and forms of malnutrition. By contrast, new approaches and classifications based on levels and types of processing and technological intervention have emerged to challenge this nutricentric framing, such as the concept of ‘ultra-processed products’ (Monteiro 2017). In this paper I examine the scientific paradigms and political and policy implications of this current debate amongst nutrition experts regarding food processing, particularly for food manufacturing corporations. The manufacturers of highly processed foods and beverages—ie. ‘Big Food’ corporations —have arguably benefited from the nutricentric paradigm as a means of marketing their processed products. I will examine how food corporations are continuing to draw upon, shape and capture the nutritionism paradigm to support and legitimise three nutritional engineering and marketing strategies in response to health concerns and aspirations: the micronutrient fortification of foods to address nutrient deficiencies; the reformulation of products to reduce harmful food components; and the functionalisation of foods for ‘optimal’ nutrition through addition of functional nutrients and ingredients. These companies thereby claim to not only be reducing the harmfulness of their products, but also providing techno-nutritional solutions to the problems of under and over-nutrition in the global North and South.

Author

• Gyorgy Scrinis, University of Melbourne