Food labels

Here’s an old, unpublished not from my trip to the US earlier this year.

I was shopping at Target (an American hypermarket for the uninitiated) and noticed weird signs in the grocery area. There was a “Protein” section.

1. This helps explain the obesity crisis in the US and the weird relationship Americans have to food. Instead of food being food in all its glory, nourishing, filling, part of family life, it’s broken down into meaningless constituent parts. No wonder people have unhealthy relationships with eating, although this is obviously one of many factors.
2. This is scientism leaking into the mainstream. It wasn’t that long ago that the average person wouldn’t have even known what protein was, and may well have been in far better health than the typical person eating a “balanced diet” today.
3. Not surprisingly, everything in the protein aisle was processed junk food. This is what really turns me off about the whole “plant based” push that’s trendy right now, despite that fact that I rarely eat meat myself. But there’s no profit to be had in promoting traditional foods like beans, lentils, buckwheat, and other whole grains.
4. Americans really like weird and “innovative” marketing names. But I think there’s real damage to be had in not calling things what they actually are. This goes well beyond food.