Mr. Bode, my shopping basket usually looks like this: products that are as unprocessed as possible, regional as possible, lots of plant-based products, organic if possible. So far I thought that I was shopping relatively healthy with it. What do you mean?
There is a considerable lack of transparency with all these foods. You can hardly or not at all judge the quality. Be it with vegetables, where we do not know under what conditions they were grown; then the vegan foods, which are often highly processed and sometimes have problematic additives. Organic has clear advantages: no mineral fertilizers, no use of pesticides. But organic food can be highly unorganic. The production of an organic beef steak may emit more greenhouse gases than a conventional one, and the labeling of processed organic food is just as opaque as that of non-organic. There is little or no way to avoid the non-information and misinformation.
At least with processed foods, I can just read the small print on the label.
This is an illusion of transparency. Even if you read all this or rely on the seals of approval, you won’t get all the information because many things don’t need to be declared. Industry and government like to talk about empowerment: it’s up to the individual consumer to make the right choice. With my book I wanted to prove that this is a trap. As long as the law allows or encourages cheating, I can’t inform myself at all. When I buy a computer, I can research it in the store and choose the model that I can afford. But with what we eat every day, I don’t have that right as a consumer. Even after 20 years of Foodwatch, it still amazes me. That’s why I researched it after leaving Foodwatch.
How did you go about it?
We selected 17 product groups that we took a closer look at. Of course, I had to consult a lot of experts. I know about additives, flavors and seals of approval, but not in such detail. Otherwise, I go to the supermarket every day anyway and do some shopping. I look around and ask stupid questions. That’s my hobby (laughs). For example, an organic supermarket near me has its own butcher. Then I asked: “Tell me, with Black Forest ham, the meat doesn’t have to come from the Black Forest.” The seller said: “Yes, I know, but it’s different with organic ham.”
What is probably wrong?
Exactly, not true. But he didn’t believe me.
Was there anything that totally surprised you?
There were indeed things that blew me away. For example the so-called direct juice, in which the juice is pressed directly from the fruit without being converted into concentrate. In reality, it often looks like this: The juice is treated with heat, possibly also deep-frozen, then the flavors and vitamins are removed and then added again, whereby the re-flavoring does not have to be declared. Who knows? I didn’t know. What also scared me was the egg thing. “By buying these eggs, you support our farmers,” it said on the box, and next to it was a German address. And then the eggs come from the Netherlands.
How can that be?
That’s all allowed. Hay milk, for example, is a “guaranteed traditional specialty” according to the Food Act. This is a definition under European law. If you take a closer look, you will see that the cow can also be fed with concentrated feed. And the packaging still says: Our cows are fed with hay.
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