Food Bullying: How to Avoid Buying B.S.

Introduction

Are you buying B.S. (Bull Speak)?

Is non-GMO, gluten-free, antibiotic-free, fat-free milk better than regular milk?

Are all-natural corn chips better for you?

Does anyone really need organic, natural, hormone-free cat litter?

No should be the quick, simple answer to each of those questions. No to milk carrying too many label claims, no to all-natural corn chips, and, most certainly, no to kitty litter B.S. (Bull Speak) marketing claims. And no to the bullying that is clearly happening across dinner plates, grocery aisles, and food deliveries.

However, I recognize that saying no is difficult, just as it is on the playground. People feel judged and bullied around food. Hundreds of examples of food bullying poured in while I was writing this book. Friends, people on social media, and audience members were happy to share because every food experience has a story. What’s yours? Is your food defined by image, what your friends tell you on Facebook, the brand on the bag, or the simple sensory pleasure food provides? How do others influence your food story? When and where do you need to say no?

Who doesn’t love a good story? Whether it’s reading a fairytale to a child and watching her eyes light up, spinning tales to entertain your friends over cocktails, the folklore found across family traditions, or losing yourself in a movie—we all enjoy stories. They make us feel good, provide us with connectivity, and drive our decisions.

Positioning one food as superior to another

Food, once cherished for nourishment, has become a chaotic playground filled with claims to bully and even demonize people around their eating choices. The need to position one food as superior to another lies at the heart of food bullying. Fat-free marshmallows. Gluten-free water. Grass-fed peaches. Hormone-free salt. Vegan water. No-salt added, boneless bananas. Somehow, our hunger for a feel-good story about our food has led to these ludicrous labels. I call B.S.!

Sixty percent of Americans say food labels influence their food purchases. Consider this scenario in your meat case or butcher shop. Company X decides to proclaim its chicken is antibiotic-free. Suzie consumer is left to wonder what is wrong with the other chicken. Are there antibiotics in it?

Am I doing the right thing for my family? is Suzie’s first question. As a mom, I completely understand that question—and ask myself that frequently. Instead, I suggest you start with why are they making this claim? I call this the WHY? fear filter and explain it in greater detail in Chapter 20.

If you don’t pause to ask yourself about why there is marketing on labels, you have just been bullied by an inanimate object—in fact, the label itself. How? In the antibiotic-free meat case example above, there is nothing wrong with the other chicken; all meat goes through the same federally-mandated approval process to protect you from antibiotics.

However, company X’s label claim infers superiority and creates fear about the other products. Remember, a company wants to differentiate its product so you spend money on its brand. Fear and suspicion are keys to bullying; both create a vicious cycle that leads to more B.S. food and behavior.

It’s tiring. I’ve watched that bullying cycle continue in restaurants and across the grocery store, from meat to milk to eggs to produce to grains. It’s time for food bullying to stop—and that starts with you not buying B.S. food.

Five ways to avoid buying B.S. food

I’ll take a deeper dive into each of these throughout Food Bullying, but I wanted to give you a handful of quick tips because I know your time is valuable. I’ll be covering each in further detail with examples throughout this book.

1.Ignore empty food claims. Just as you don’t want food with empty calories, avoid food with empty label claims such as ____-free, all-natural, farm-raised, or sustainable. For example, all milk in the grocery store is non-GMO, gluten-free, and antibiotic-free. Those labels are not measurable or meaningful but are used to make one product seem more attractive than another. If you want to know facts—not B.S., flip the package over, and read the Nutrition Facts Label, which is scientifically true.

2.Understand the journey. The journey of your food is an amazing story—and usually not the negative, sensationalized claims you saw on YouTube or Netflix. Sometimes, many hands are involved in producing your food. In other cases, such as a bag of apples, the last hand to touch the apple was the one that picked it from the tree. In every case, rules are in place for proper food handling to ensure it is safe and nutritious when it reaches your table. Rather than buying B.S., get to know the rigorous system and science in place to protect your food safety.

3.Stand up to the bullies. Often a food claim is communicated in a way designed to create an extreme emotional response. People become scared; even well-intentioned neighbors and friends can pressure you to change your eating and buying habits. Celebrities, wellness gurus, or gym nutritionists often proclaim their way is the only right way. Who are they to say your food isn’t good enough? Your family’s nutrition is your business. Just as bullying is a real threat in our schools, food bullying is getting out of hand and takes advantage of insecurity. Make your food decisions based on science and find experts with firsthand experience to help you, such as a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist (RDN), food scientist, or farmer.

4.Get to know the people. Have you watched a documentary on farmers abusing animals, damaging the environment, or operating huge factory farms? In reality, 96% of today’s U.S. farms and ranches are still run by families; they are the people who can give you the real story about how food is raised, without the B.S. Seven out of 10 Americans believe it’s important to know the farmers who produce their food. And yet, in the earlier chicken meat case example, a common question is: Why are farmers pumping antibiotics into chicken? If you talk with a farmer, you’ll find that it’s often cruel to withhold medicine when chickens are sick and, even then, the dosage is strictly regulated by federal policies. That poultry farmer can also explain the many steps he takes, under federal requirement, to be sure all your chicken isn’t chocked full of antibiotics—even the meat in the packages without an antibiotic-free label.

5.Make your own decisions. Have you felt pressured by groupthink? Define your own health, ethical, environmental, and social standards when it comes to food. And measure all claims against YOUR OWN standards rather than falling prey to B.S. claims and behaviors.

After a lifetime on a farm and, more recently, writing two books about food, I’ve come to realize that I am confident in my standards because of my firsthand understanding of the science, source, and system behind food. I hope to share enough of that with you to help you become as equally as clear about your own standards. Those standards and knowing your own food story, are your answer to bullying.

Why this book?

Many people will tell you a beautiful story about how food is raised on perfect farms by wonderful people, making you feel good about your eating choices. However, truth in food matters more to me than simply helping you feel good. It’s more important to me that you understand where food comes from and how you’ve likely fallen for B.S. food in pursuit of a perfect story.

I see my friends confused, people questioning what has happened to food, and the bullying getting increasingly out of hand after 18 years of working to connect farm and food. I also know how the chaos around food has hurt family farms and want to do something to help people who are raising our food.

In short, the fascination for finding the perfect food story that makes the right social statement has led to an inability to discern B.S. from meaningful information. I wrote this book to equip you to find the signposts of food bullying, make more rational decisions, and avoid buying B.S. on the chaotic food playground.

Elevate the food conversation

Food is a basic necessity, not an opportunity for manipulation. It is time to elevate the food conversation above B.S. so you can avoid frustration and anxiety the next time you are making eating choices. Hopefully, Food Bullying: How to Avoid Buying B.S. will help you do just that!

The book is arranged to first frame food bullying, including an examination of different levels of bullying and then to offer familiar examples of bully figures in food fairy tales and folklore. The third section outlines the who, what, why, where, when, and how in understanding food bullying, including what it’s doing to our brains. The fourth section includes food label descriptions—and how you should manage and evaluate those to avoid information overload. The book’s final section offers specific tools to help you find your own solutions, including your personalized action plan to help you create a better food story.

If Food Bullying gives you pause and compels you to ask Why is that claim on my food? whenever you make eating choices, I’ll consider my mission accomplished. Hopefully, exposing the food bullies and their manipulation will inspire you to have greater confidence in your food-related decisions and more civilized conversations about food and farming. Ultimately, that will lead to even greater food appreciation and enjoyment. After all, no one deserves B.S. in their food!

Section 1

Understanding the playground of food bullying

Chapter 1

What is B.S.?

Do you want irrefutable evidence? Most of us like concrete answers. Consider the popularity of genetic testing services and the technology using DNA to find family connections and prove our heritage. My friend Gina is a highly successful businesswoman, wife, mom, and grandma. She’s a vibrant optimist and turned to Ancestry.com to identify her father after spending decades wondering about him.

The science is now there, it can tell us definitely, notes Gina. She sent in what seemed like a giant cup of spit, entered her information in the database, and then waited. Nothing, aside from fifth cousins. Gina gave up. A year later, a woman contacted her through Facebook after finding Gina’s name on the Ancestry site, which catalogs data from anyone who has had testing done. The site showed the two women were related more closely than first cousins. Upon chatting, they discovered they were sisters! Not only did Gina find her father, but also three other siblings to complete her family story. It wasn’t a fairytale ending, but it was irrefutable proof.

What proof are you looking Bullying preys on fear created by B.S. claims about food. for to complete your food story? The science is now there; it can tell us definitely. This is as true for food as it is for genetic testing; yet, we refuse to trust what we know as proof and allow the bullies to rule the food playground in hopes of finding a fairytale. This section is designed to explain the playground and how the chaos impacts our eating choices.

How have you been made to feel about food?

Has anyone ever made you feel bad about the food you choose to eat? Is it OK to shame people about their eating choices if it’s not socially acceptable to shame people on race, religion, or sexual orientation? Why is a pregnant woman made to feel guilty if she’s not buying the right label of food, or a new dad totally frustrated over the thousands of options found in the grocery store? Is it necessary for a college student to be shamed over her choice to eat meat or not?

B.S. refers to the bad behaviors, deceptive label claims, marketing half-truths, and other unnecessary drama surrounding our food plates today. Frankly, it’s all just Bull Speak (B.S.). An $8 gallon of milk from a specialty store is not superior to a $2.99 gallon of milk from a convenience store. Both the perceived better label and resulting sense of superiority are often B.S. Assuming you are a better person because you bought the right label of food is no different than schoolyard bullying over the right brand of clothing.

Bullying operates from a point of privilege, preying on fear. Food marketing is often fear-based. This misleading marketing has made food overly emotional, to the point where our nutrition is seemingly trumped by moral statement. The resulting social movement has caused an alarming rise in food bullying. The more food bullying, the more B.S. food—and so the cycle continues.

Consider this; if the power in your food choices has shifted to what you read on marketing labels, you are likely being bullied. The front of food packages frequently contains misleading and B.S. information—because companies want you to spend your money on their product. The Michigan State University (MSU) Food Literacy 2018 study showed that 87% of people are at least somewhat influenced by food labels in their food buying decisions. Do label claims influence your eating choices?

The Nutrition Facts Label, also known as the black and white box or panel, contains the information you need to know. The Nutrition Facts Label was just updated after 20 years to better represent today’s serving sizes, and will be covered in Chapter 16. You can find standardized serving size, calories, fat, protein, sodium, carbohydrates, added sugars, and other essential nutrition information in this box. All food must have the new label by 2021 and, because it is regulated, it’s a label you can rely on.

Bullying is different than conflict

Merriam Webster defines bullying as acts of written or spoken words intended to intimidate or harass a person. Bullying is a huge concern with young people today; I know from personal experience how painful it is, after being bullied as a seventh-grade girl in a new school system. Taunts from decades past are still a clear and painful memory.

The National Bullying Prevention Center clarifies the difference between bullying and conflict, which is a disagreement or argument in which both sides share their views. Conflict is an exchange, such as a debate about whether green or white grapes are better. Bullying is done with a goal to hurt, harm, or humiliate. It’s often about having power and control over another. The power, real or otherwise, can include a group against an individual, one person being physically larger than another, or elevated social status. Bullies often perceive their targets as vulnerable in some way and find satisfaction in harming them.

In normal conflict, people self-monitor. They read cues when lines have been crossed and then modify behavior accordingly. Those with empathy usually realize they have hurt someone and will want to stop negative behavior. Those intending to cause harm and whose behavior goes beyond normal conflict will continue their behavior, even when they know it’s hurting someone, according to the National Bullying Prevention Center.

What does food bullying mean?

Bullying doesn’t happen without fear—and there’s a whole lot of fear in food today! Food bullying literally