The journalist specialized in nutrition, health and food Laura Caorsi He was in the supermarket when he saw a packet of mini rice cakes on one of the shelves. In the container, he put a very large ‘Iberian ham’, and it also wore – also in a generous size – the drawing of unmistakable slices of that ingredient, waving and seductive, which looked like flags in the wind. He could almost sense its marbled meat, its aromatic fat and a DO that made eyes at him; but — as so many times, alas — the promises turned out to be a fraud.
“Because of my work, I usually look at the products, their packaging, their messages and their labels. I like to analyze what happens there in terms of communication; understand the strategies manufacturers use to make us buy ”, says Caorsi. His Iberian romance ended when he turned the package over to read the ingredient list and discovered that there were only aromas of ham. It was then that Caorsi, who is also the editor and teacher of the master’s degree in Clinical Nutrition at the Catholic University of ValenciaHe decided to turn the matter around and turn his anger into something that he could spread from a playful point of view.
“I found it outrageous, so the next day I tweeted it, but not in a gruff tone, but rather posing it as a game. A version sui generis from The right price, presented by Joaquín Prat ”, says the author. Thus was born The Right Percentage, a fun with a didactic and fresh spirit —especially in that social network with a tendency to anger that is Twitter— which has become for many a date where information and laughter go hand in hand.
🔔The correct answer is… 0⃣% .🏆
They do not have #Ham but rather “ham aroma”, and this should be on the packaging so as not to mislead.
The closest thing to Iberian ham and those slices of the drawing waving like flags is the very high content of #Salt. Here, the details 👇 https://t.co/8lkQSowP7V pic.twitter.com/52RKKRIjHs– Laura Caorsi (@lauracaorsi) April 19, 2021
The game
The Fair% has a very simple mechanism: it consists of observing the packaging of a food, seeing which ingredient stands out there and guessing how much of that ingredient the product contains. “As in the television classic, whoever comes closest wins without going overboard. Here we only look at the front of the container: the same that we see on the supermarket shelves ”, sums up its creator.
Anyone can participate, but without cheating: it is not worth looking for extra information before doing it (which would be equivalent to looking at the fine print, the nutritional information). “In other words: the idea is to quantify what the packaging transmits to us,” says Caorsi. The different products that have passed through its showcase have something in common: they highlight with large images or words an ingredient that they contain in very small proportions. “Or that, directly, they do not contain: the case of popcorn was especially bloody: despite putting ‘BUTTER’ (thus, in typography Look at me a lot), they didn’t have it, ”says the journalist. What they had — and have — is palm fat.
To play!
The surprise and indignation did not wait; The formula worked and in six months it went from being a specific thing, which the journalist did on her own Twitter account, to being something more regular with its own account and entity. “The ham pancakes without ham gave a lot to talk about, and I won’t even mention the butterless popcorn that followed. Those two initial tweets had some repercussion on the same social network, but they also appeared in some media ”: at that moment Caorsi began to think that, perhaps, he had found a friendly and sympathetic way to point out the tricks.
She manages this project alone, but in good company: some popularizers, nutritionists and food technologists help her a lot, “professionals like Beatriz Robles, Juan Revenga, Gemma Del Caño, Miguel A. Lurueña or Julio Basulto. They, among others, are crucial for solving doubts, pointing out errors, writing down relevant details and spreading the word about the game ”, he comments with appreciation. To choose the products that will star in the contest, she goes to the supermarket, reads all the labels she finds and, if she sees something that catches her attention, she writes it down. “But there is also an e-mail address so that anyone can do the same: [email protected]”, clarifies the creator of this game, which also serves to refine the critical spirit, since for her “that of searching and hunt examples is almost a game in itself; I would like to think that it encourages curiosity and the habit of reading the fine print before buying anything ”.
Players
Among the participants we can find the most disparate profiles —among those that can be easily recognized, since Twitter allows anonymity—: Caorsi would say that there is everything, and of different ages. “I recognize many professionals in food and gastronomy, students and nutrition teachers, and also people who have nothing to do with these worlds, but who do the shopping and have a good time discovering curiosities about everyday products.”
They are a community that even already has jokes, private jokes and even associations —with a certain joke—: the 0.7% Club. “Since we started playing we have almost 30 shop windows and, for some unknown reason, that number has come up several times. I don’t know if it’s an industry fetish or what; I have pending to inquire into it ”. The fact is that, by repetition, some people have set up a small group of their own and always bet on that amount, whatever happens. “Some have even put it in their Twitter bio (like ‘0.7% partner‘or’with 0.7% mamarracho‘), Caorsi smiles.
The result
That is why when the results are discovered the reactions are of surprise, disbelief, indignation and even anger. “The same thing that anyone who has bought something thinking that it has meat could feel and later discover that the product has less meat than a bird’s knee. There are a lot of laughs, yes, but deep down nobody likes to feel cheated ”, reflects the journalist.
Some of the cases that have most angered the contestants have been, in addition to the pancakes and popcorn already mentioned; chili con carne, which, in addition to very, very little meat, had a heart of beef — a topic that caused so much controversy that Caorsi has already written a specific article about him-; the cabracho cake that was only 1% cabracho and a skim milk and walnut drink that was only 0.04% walnut. “The industry has a superb command of language and applies it whenever it can to its advantage. We see this in the names that are chosen for some products, capable of suggesting things that are not (Digestive, Ligeresa, BienStar …). ”, Points out the journalist again.
The manipulation also goes through the type of ingredients that stand out and are hidden; for example, put the oatmeal that has a yogurt very large, even if it only has 1.5%, and not to mention the sugar, even if it is more than 13% of the total composition. The use of prepositions, or their absence, also gives clues. “When you read something like ‘truffle nougat’ or ‘butter popcorn’ and you notice a ‘de’ or a ‘con’ missing in the middle, bad. It is not that they are saving ink on the packaging; is that they are saving ingredient in the product ”.
It is inevitable that curiosity pique, and ask if any of the manufacturers that —involuntarily— have been part of this game have manifested themselves in any way after being exposed. “No never. And I don’t think they do either. The game is, at heart, a campaign to promote reading ”, reflects Caorsi. “With each example, we learn to read: only those who prefer us illiterate could be upset.”
Winners
Possibly the game with the most winners in history – anyone who learns to avoid these types of sneaks when approaching the grocery store wins a lot more than a consolation prize. For Caorsi, the easiest way to do it is also the most constant: you have to get used to reading. “We have to think that food containers are, above all, advertisements, and that the real information, the one that interests us, is often relegated to the side, to a fold, to the back. You always have to read the fine print and the ingredient lists, and if you don’t understand something, ask until you understand it ”.
The funniest thing —or tragicomic, depending on how you look at it— is that in the process Laura has discovered that “packaging fools everyone, without exception. It is very difficult to judge a product well, trusting only by the claims of its packaging ”. The laxity of the measures on what is allowed or not in labeling and advertising – especially flagrant in snacks and snacks, food “for children” and other festivals of ultra-processed with sheepskin—, added to the knowledge of the industry to play to the limit, do not exactly make this type of deception difficult.
Caorsi sums it up like this: “They do it because they can, because it is cheap for them, because they take advantage of our good faith and because they have a short-term sales strategy. Now, those of us who buy have enormous power, although we are not using it: our choices affect the market, we are not passive elements ”. That is why he invites us not to forget that “elections are truly free when they are taken in an informed manner; also in food ”.
.
#game #reveals #worst #food #industry