Who Knew That a Frozen Chicken Tender could be so Complex?
Food Autobiography
Prior to taking ISS 310, I figured I knew everything that I needed to about food. I ate what I considered “normal” or “what everybody else ate”. After taking this class, I’ve come to realize that there is no true “normal” when it comes to food. Without my full realization, the cultural, social, economic, and geographic factors I am exposed to have shaped me and what I put on my plate. By analyzing my family’s values around food, the larger culture in which I grew up, systems that allow me to eat the way I do, and my own personal attitudes towards food, I can finally begin to understand why I reach for foods like potato chips over carrots.
One of the greatest factors in shaping how I eat was my family and their own personal views on food. I come from a six-person household with two parents and three younger siblings. No one in my family is religious, so we never experienced any food restrictions from this. My parents are highly educated, having both completed college, and were always focused on raising a family. Growing up, only my father worked, a benefit of him finding a good job that allowed us to remain comfortably middle class for as long as I can remember. Because my parents did not have to worry about money, they were able to engage in their children’s extracurricular activities; my father has coached soccer for all of my siblings and my mom was constantly driving us to and from various practices and after school clubs. Because of this, my parents often did not find the time to cook elaborate meals for us. Instead, they relied on frozen meals and convenience items, such as packaged pasta side dishes and frozen chicken tenders. In her book Something from the Oven, Laura Shapiro explains that, when the food industry pushed for heavier reliance on processed foods, many of the early adopters were richer parents who needed to save time cooking because they wanted to engage with their kids more. This is something I did not realize in my first food autobiography; my parents do not rely on convenience foods because they don’t care about health and are cheap but because time is their most precious asset. Money and health considerations do not drive their food decisions. My parents decisions on what to feed us were driven by love, just not nutritionally based love. This was reflected in my diet of mainly processed food growing up. By engaging in convenient and McDonaldized systems, my parents were able to feed their many children quickly so we had time for other activities. This most likely influenced my continued tendency to eat my meals very quickly. Recently, my mom started working for Shipt, a company where someone delivers another person’s groceries to their home. When her kids got older, my mom took this job to fill her free time. Working at Shipt allows her to support a system that allows others to spend less time on food, exactly as she did when I was younger.
Despite the fact that my parents value convenience, this, interestingly enough, never resulted in much fast food consumption. I recall, with fondness, that whenever I would finish school for the year, we would always go to McDonalds. We rarely went to McDonalds besides this, which made the impression that fast food was a treat, not an expected meal. Because we lived in an affluent area serviced by a plethora of grocery stores, we never needed to rely on a restaurant to feed us. While my parents valued convenience, they were also privileged with food access and money, so I do have several memories growing up of eating home cooked meals, even if they weren’t always healthy. Between these meals, I remember snacking a lot. My mom would by a large proportion of snacks, like Goldfish and pretzels, when grocery shopping and would happily distribute them to her children. While reading the article “From ‘Junk Food’ to Treats’”, I was reminded a lot of what my mother did during my childhood. I was a bit confused at first, because we were never poor like the mothers mentioned in Chen’s article. I came to realize, though, that my parent gave us treats because they valued our affection over our health. They could afford to feed us better, but that was not their priority. Their affection, while coming from a good place, unfortunately led to compulsive snacking on junk food that I still engage in today.
In addition to the food opinions I formed while living in my parents’ house, I also was heavily influenced by the larger culture that surrounded me. I grew up in the Midwest in a predominantly white and middle class area. This cultural setting ended up contributing to many learned likes and dislikes. In her article “That’s Disgusting”, Rachel Herz explains that one’s food preferences are highly influenced by shifting history and cultural expectations. It is because I exist during the 21st century in an area with a large European influence that I regularly dine on foods such as hamburgers or spaghetti and meatballs – food that would have been foreign to Americans hundreds of years ago. Because of these cultural expectations, I also find myself struggling to explore food from other cultures. The few times my family has experimented with food, it’s always been with a dish like Americanized orange chicken. This represents a trend in current American cuisine, as expressed by Bonnie Tsui in her article “Why We Can’t Talk about Race in Food”, where traditionally ethnic food is made to be blander and changed to fit the palettes of white Americans like myself. Even when I seek out foods that have not been heavily altered, I still find my learned preferences can inhibit my appreciation of other people’s food.
Along with my learned taste preferences, American culture in general has also shaped my expectations of meals and food. Growing up, a meal did not seem complete without meat as a central component. Reflecting on what I have learned during this semester, having meat seems to be an expectation of richer, Western countries who can afford it. Historically, nutrition science has placed a large focus on having enough animal protein. It is only recently that this claim is being questioned – too recent for culture to have adapted. Thus, large amounts of meat are still unconsciously expected at meals. In addition to these culturally inherent expectations, I have come to recognize that the food industry itself has shaped my expectations of food. I did my Topic Explorer paper on children’s food advertising, and, after having done research on this topic, it is clear that we are constantly being pushed to buy unhealthy food through advertisements. I know that certain TV commercials definitely influenced what I wanted my parents to buy when I was young. These commercials and certain food mascots were part of my childhood, and probably contribute to my (fairly unhealthy) food and snack preferences today. This is also why countries like Chile have turned to limiting food advertisements, as mentioned in the article “In Sweeping War on Obesity, Chile Slays Tony the Tiger”.
My diet growing up would not have been possible if I didn’t live in an affluent area in the United States. To make our meals, my mother relied heavily on two things: being able to buy whatever type of food she wanted at any time and being able to store that food. Without trade and the infrastructure in place to move out of season foods to our local grocery store, my childhood meals would have looked very different. Living in a suburban area also allowed for access to these foods. Additionally, since my parents rely on processed food, systems of industrialization also need to be in place to provide us our meals. Finally, upon purchasing the food, refrigeration is needed to keep it edible and extend its shelf life. Without refrigeration in the transport process and in my own home, I never would have been able to eat all the frozen pizza I did as a child. After taking ISS 310, I now also realize that these systems come at great costs, especially in terms of worker, environmental, and animal welfare.
Finally, one of the things I’ve learned this semester is that I never thought about food because I was not expected to. American society and my parents told me what was okay and what was not okay to eat. It was not until I was living on my own at Michigan State that I really started to question what I ate, especially as I learned more about the environmental impact of food. Because of this, during my freshman year of college, I decided that I wanted to be a vegetarian. This was a huge change for me, as it was a rejection of the “meat is everything” attitude I had been fed since birth. Despite the difficulties, I had completely transitioned to being vegetarian by October 2016. This was, however, until I was having a bad day and decided to turn to a chicken sandwich for comfort: my first meaty meal in a week. It was sitting there, eating that chicken sandwich, that I realized I wasn’t happy. This hunk of meat, no matter how good it tasted, did not mean more to me than my morals. With my rejection of meat, I slowly began to realize that I did not have to eat food the way I did growing up.
While my first true reflective thoughts of food occurred when I became a vegetarian, my experiences in this class have led to even further thinking about what I eat and how that shapes me as a person. I was glad to discover that my vegetarianism is better for the environment than eating meat, as confirmed by Foer in Eating Animals. The Protein Scorecard website and the Forks over Knives documentary have both inspired me to limit my dairy and egg intake as well. Other readings, such as Pandora’s Lunchbox, have also caused me to question the cheap foods I buy more than ever before. Most importantly, what I took away from this class is that eating, while incredibly fundamental, is also incredibly complex. I am inspired to continually learn and reflect more on food and how I eat.
One of the greatest factors in shaping how I eat was my family and their own personal views on food. I come from a six-person household with two parents and three younger siblings. No one in my family is religious, so we never experienced any food restrictions from this. My parents are highly educated, having both completed college, and were always focused on raising a family. Growing up, only my father worked, a benefit of him finding a good job that allowed us to remain comfortably middle class for as long as I can remember. Because my parents did not have to worry about money, they were able to engage in their children’s extracurricular activities; my father has coached soccer for all of my siblings and my mom was constantly driving us to and from various practices and after school clubs. Because of this, my parents often did not find the time to cook elaborate meals for us. Instead, they relied on frozen meals and convenience items, such as packaged pasta side dishes and frozen chicken tenders. In her book Something from the Oven, Laura Shapiro explains that, when the food industry pushed for heavier reliance on processed foods, many of the early adopters were richer parents who needed to save time cooking because they wanted to engage with their kids more. This is something I did not realize in my first food autobiography; my parents do not rely on convenience foods because they don’t care about health and are cheap but because time is their most precious asset. Money and health considerations do not drive their food decisions. My parents decisions on what to feed us were driven by love, just not nutritionally based love. This was reflected in my diet of mainly processed food growing up. By engaging in convenient and McDonaldized systems, my parents were able to feed their many children quickly so we had time for other activities. This most likely influenced my continued tendency to eat my meals very quickly. Recently, my mom started working for Shipt, a company where someone delivers another person’s groceries to their home. When her kids got older, my mom took this job to fill her free time. Working at Shipt allows her to support a system that allows others to spend less time on food, exactly as she did when I was younger.
Despite the fact that my parents value convenience, this, interestingly enough, never resulted in much fast food consumption. I recall, with fondness, that whenever I would finish school for the year, we would always go to McDonalds. We rarely went to McDonalds besides this, which made the impression that fast food was a treat, not an expected meal. Because we lived in an affluent area serviced by a plethora of grocery stores, we never needed to rely on a restaurant to feed us. While my parents valued convenience, they were also privileged with food access and money, so I do have several memories growing up of eating home cooked meals, even if they weren’t always healthy. Between these meals, I remember snacking a lot. My mom would by a large proportion of snacks, like Goldfish and pretzels, when grocery shopping and would happily distribute them to her children. While reading the article “From ‘Junk Food’ to Treats’”, I was reminded a lot of what my mother did during my childhood. I was a bit confused at first, because we were never poor like the mothers mentioned in Chen’s article. I came to realize, though, that my parent gave us treats because they valued our affection over our health. They could afford to feed us better, but that was not their priority. Their affection, while coming from a good place, unfortunately led to compulsive snacking on junk food that I still engage in today.
In addition to the food opinions I formed while living in my parents’ house, I also was heavily influenced by the larger culture that surrounded me. I grew up in the Midwest in a predominantly white and middle class area. This cultural setting ended up contributing to many learned likes and dislikes. In her article “That’s Disgusting”, Rachel Herz explains that one’s food preferences are highly influenced by shifting history and cultural expectations. It is because I exist during the 21st century in an area with a large European influence that I regularly dine on foods such as hamburgers or spaghetti and meatballs – food that would have been foreign to Americans hundreds of years ago. Because of these cultural expectations, I also find myself struggling to explore food from other cultures. The few times my family has experimented with food, it’s always been with a dish like Americanized orange chicken. This represents a trend in current American cuisine, as expressed by Bonnie Tsui in her article “Why We Can’t Talk about Race in Food”, where traditionally ethnic food is made to be blander and changed to fit the palettes of white Americans like myself. Even when I seek out foods that have not been heavily altered, I still find my learned preferences can inhibit my appreciation of other people’s food.
Along with my learned taste preferences, American culture in general has also shaped my expectations of meals and food. Growing up, a meal did not seem complete without meat as a central component. Reflecting on what I have learned during this semester, having meat seems to be an expectation of richer, Western countries who can afford it. Historically, nutrition science has placed a large focus on having enough animal protein. It is only recently that this claim is being questioned – too recent for culture to have adapted. Thus, large amounts of meat are still unconsciously expected at meals. In addition to these culturally inherent expectations, I have come to recognize that the food industry itself has shaped my expectations of food. I did my Topic Explorer paper on children’s food advertising, and, after having done research on this topic, it is clear that we are constantly being pushed to buy unhealthy food through advertisements. I know that certain TV commercials definitely influenced what I wanted my parents to buy when I was young. These commercials and certain food mascots were part of my childhood, and probably contribute to my (fairly unhealthy) food and snack preferences today. This is also why countries like Chile have turned to limiting food advertisements, as mentioned in the article “In Sweeping War on Obesity, Chile Slays Tony the Tiger”.
My diet growing up would not have been possible if I didn’t live in an affluent area in the United States. To make our meals, my mother relied heavily on two things: being able to buy whatever type of food she wanted at any time and being able to store that food. Without trade and the infrastructure in place to move out of season foods to our local grocery store, my childhood meals would have looked very different. Living in a suburban area also allowed for access to these foods. Additionally, since my parents rely on processed food, systems of industrialization also need to be in place to provide us our meals. Finally, upon purchasing the food, refrigeration is needed to keep it edible and extend its shelf life. Without refrigeration in the transport process and in my own home, I never would have been able to eat all the frozen pizza I did as a child. After taking ISS 310, I now also realize that these systems come at great costs, especially in terms of worker, environmental, and animal welfare.
Finally, one of the things I’ve learned this semester is that I never thought about food because I was not expected to. American society and my parents told me what was okay and what was not okay to eat. It was not until I was living on my own at Michigan State that I really started to question what I ate, especially as I learned more about the environmental impact of food. Because of this, during my freshman year of college, I decided that I wanted to be a vegetarian. This was a huge change for me, as it was a rejection of the “meat is everything” attitude I had been fed since birth. Despite the difficulties, I had completely transitioned to being vegetarian by October 2016. This was, however, until I was having a bad day and decided to turn to a chicken sandwich for comfort: my first meaty meal in a week. It was sitting there, eating that chicken sandwich, that I realized I wasn’t happy. This hunk of meat, no matter how good it tasted, did not mean more to me than my morals. With my rejection of meat, I slowly began to realize that I did not have to eat food the way I did growing up.
While my first true reflective thoughts of food occurred when I became a vegetarian, my experiences in this class have led to even further thinking about what I eat and how that shapes me as a person. I was glad to discover that my vegetarianism is better for the environment than eating meat, as confirmed by Foer in Eating Animals. The Protein Scorecard website and the Forks over Knives documentary have both inspired me to limit my dairy and egg intake as well. Other readings, such as Pandora’s Lunchbox, have also caused me to question the cheap foods I buy more than ever before. Most importantly, what I took away from this class is that eating, while incredibly fundamental, is also incredibly complex. I am inspired to continually learn and reflect more on food and how I eat.
Friend to Friend, Maybe You Should Stop Eating the Ramen
Pandora's Lunchbox Email
Hello Arpita!
I hope you are doing well! Recently, I have been reading Pandora’s Lunchbox by Melanie Warner for one of my classes. While reading this book, I thought of how we both eat here at MSU. I know we both rely heavily on processed foods as a tasty and quick way to nourish ourselves, but Warner’s book is causing me to look at these processed foods in a different light. While I enjoy sitting at our dining table together, eating a bowl of Ramen, I’m starting to think this may be more detrimental than we both realize.
First, I’d like to discuss one of the foods that we both rely on, which may not be as healthy as we once assumed: soy. I know this may come as an unpleasant shock (especially considering that our freezer is piled high with fake meat alternatives), but it’s important to look at this compound for what it really is. According to Warner, “soy protein isn’t a harmful ingredient” but “whether it’s beneficial is another story” (pg. 155). It’s important to note that this is mainly due to the processing that soy goes through – regular soy is great, “containing all nine essential amino acids” (pg. 156). But by the time it reaches our veggie burgers, “all of the fiber and vitamins have been processed out” (pg.157). So maybe our Morningstar burgers aren’t as good as they appear (sorry for that potential shock)! Ultimately, they’re not harmful, but I’m starting to realize they might not actually constitute as a healthy meal.
Soy protein isn’t the only food that isn’t as beneficial as you might think. I know you love your cereal in the morning, but your bowl of Cheerios is not a health food (despite what you claim). Cereal, at one time, was super healthy. Early corn flakes “were crudely made, nutritious creations” due to their whole-grain content and minimal processing (pg. 58). In the present day, however, cereal is so processed that it’s almost devoid of any nutrients. When being processed, cereal grains are run through so many machines and broken down so much that beneficial nutrients and vitamins are destroyed. Imagine what you would look like after being shredded, subject to high velocity processing, and pressed! Yikes! I know what you’re thinking: “how can cereal be so nutritionally devoid when it lists all those vitamins on the front”? Unbelievably, that’s another trick of the food industry! Most of the vitamins that you receive in your cereal are “synthetic versions added to the product, often sprayed on after processing” (pg. 58). While this may not sound bad, synthetic vitamins have been shown not to work as well as vitamins coming from whole foods since “vitamins might not function effectively when removed from their natural fruit and vegetable habitat” (pg. 93). Additionally, we may actually be consuming too many vitamins, which can do more harm than good because these extra vitamins “plac[e] an excessive burden on the kidneys” (pg. 86). I know we like to joke that almost all of your vitamins comes from cereal, but this might be doing more harm than good in the end since the vitamins aren't coming from a natural source.
Moving away from known ingredients, there’s also a lot of talk about additives in our food that are a cause for concern. After reading Pandora’s Lunchbox, I’ve become suspicious of additives, and I wanted to make you aware of why. A lot of the additives and preservatives in our food have not been thoroughly reviewed by the FDA, as one may expect. Personally, I thought that most of the things we were eating were being properly examined by someone who cares solely about our health, but I guess not. Capitalism strikes again! In fact, “there are roughly a thousand ghost additives out there on the market” that “companies have declared safe on their own without so much as an e-mail to the FDA” (pg. 106). This occurs when companies abuse the Generally Recognized as Safe designation that the FDA has in place. According to Melanie Warner, when the FDA first became a thing, it decided that food additives like table salt that humans have been eating for years didn't have to go through rigorous testing because we already know they are fine to eat. To fix this issue, the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) label was created (pg 107). However, due to rule changes made by the FDA, making it easier to get GRAS designation than go through the whole food additive determination process (which is voluntary btw), it has now become that anything resembling some additive that is kind of safe can be given a GRAS definition. As a result, the designation has lost a lot of its credibility. This leads to chemicals in our food that were never meant to be consumed, and may not even be safe, as “less than half of all food additives … have been the subject of any published toxicology studies” (pg. 110). This can lead to a variety of health effects, like the ones that come from sodium. Most of the sodium we consume come from additives that add no nutrition or flavor, but still cause the negative effects that salt does, like high blood pressure. These additives can be even worse than regular salt because sodium based additives “bypass the body’s ability to detect and regulate sodium intake” (pg. 47), leading to easier over-consumption. And sodium is just one chemical we know the effects of – there are thousands more which we don’t. That's some pretty scary stuff roomie - I'm worried about what we may be eating.
Arpita, please don’t think that I am shaming you with this information – I know how hard it is to eat healthy, especially in college. And most of the time, it’s not even really your fault. Warner writes that “processed foods are designed to be delicious and appealingly convenient” (pg. 117). Moreover, it’s not just Warner who thinks this; science proves it! The article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” states that processed junk foods are carefully designed to make us constantly crave them, from the way they look to exactly how they taste. Being aware of everything in our food, though, can help us to reject processed foods that are bad for us. Warner notes, “the more you know about the story of food additives” and processed foods in general, “the more hollow the appeal seems” (pg. 117).
Now, I'm aware that was some pretty bleak information. So, if everything is awful for us, what is the solution? Warner thinks it’s surprisingly simple: cooking. She says, “cooking is the great divide between good and bad eating” (pg. 220). At first, I thought this was a crazy proposition – who has time to cook? Turns out, most of us do. Laura Shapiro, author of Something from the Oven, states that the food industry has convinced women that they don’t have enough time to cook. While this may be true in some cases, it is often false, and an idea of the food industry, not ourselves. If we really want to take control of our health, we have to start with our food. So, maybe, when we both get home tonight, we can try cooking a meal together rather than just eating Ramen. I’m sure we can find the time.
Best,
Alyssa
I hope you are doing well! Recently, I have been reading Pandora’s Lunchbox by Melanie Warner for one of my classes. While reading this book, I thought of how we both eat here at MSU. I know we both rely heavily on processed foods as a tasty and quick way to nourish ourselves, but Warner’s book is causing me to look at these processed foods in a different light. While I enjoy sitting at our dining table together, eating a bowl of Ramen, I’m starting to think this may be more detrimental than we both realize.
First, I’d like to discuss one of the foods that we both rely on, which may not be as healthy as we once assumed: soy. I know this may come as an unpleasant shock (especially considering that our freezer is piled high with fake meat alternatives), but it’s important to look at this compound for what it really is. According to Warner, “soy protein isn’t a harmful ingredient” but “whether it’s beneficial is another story” (pg. 155). It’s important to note that this is mainly due to the processing that soy goes through – regular soy is great, “containing all nine essential amino acids” (pg. 156). But by the time it reaches our veggie burgers, “all of the fiber and vitamins have been processed out” (pg.157). So maybe our Morningstar burgers aren’t as good as they appear (sorry for that potential shock)! Ultimately, they’re not harmful, but I’m starting to realize they might not actually constitute as a healthy meal.
Soy protein isn’t the only food that isn’t as beneficial as you might think. I know you love your cereal in the morning, but your bowl of Cheerios is not a health food (despite what you claim). Cereal, at one time, was super healthy. Early corn flakes “were crudely made, nutritious creations” due to their whole-grain content and minimal processing (pg. 58). In the present day, however, cereal is so processed that it’s almost devoid of any nutrients. When being processed, cereal grains are run through so many machines and broken down so much that beneficial nutrients and vitamins are destroyed. Imagine what you would look like after being shredded, subject to high velocity processing, and pressed! Yikes! I know what you’re thinking: “how can cereal be so nutritionally devoid when it lists all those vitamins on the front”? Unbelievably, that’s another trick of the food industry! Most of the vitamins that you receive in your cereal are “synthetic versions added to the product, often sprayed on after processing” (pg. 58). While this may not sound bad, synthetic vitamins have been shown not to work as well as vitamins coming from whole foods since “vitamins might not function effectively when removed from their natural fruit and vegetable habitat” (pg. 93). Additionally, we may actually be consuming too many vitamins, which can do more harm than good because these extra vitamins “plac[e] an excessive burden on the kidneys” (pg. 86). I know we like to joke that almost all of your vitamins comes from cereal, but this might be doing more harm than good in the end since the vitamins aren't coming from a natural source.
Moving away from known ingredients, there’s also a lot of talk about additives in our food that are a cause for concern. After reading Pandora’s Lunchbox, I’ve become suspicious of additives, and I wanted to make you aware of why. A lot of the additives and preservatives in our food have not been thoroughly reviewed by the FDA, as one may expect. Personally, I thought that most of the things we were eating were being properly examined by someone who cares solely about our health, but I guess not. Capitalism strikes again! In fact, “there are roughly a thousand ghost additives out there on the market” that “companies have declared safe on their own without so much as an e-mail to the FDA” (pg. 106). This occurs when companies abuse the Generally Recognized as Safe designation that the FDA has in place. According to Melanie Warner, when the FDA first became a thing, it decided that food additives like table salt that humans have been eating for years didn't have to go through rigorous testing because we already know they are fine to eat. To fix this issue, the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) label was created (pg 107). However, due to rule changes made by the FDA, making it easier to get GRAS designation than go through the whole food additive determination process (which is voluntary btw), it has now become that anything resembling some additive that is kind of safe can be given a GRAS definition. As a result, the designation has lost a lot of its credibility. This leads to chemicals in our food that were never meant to be consumed, and may not even be safe, as “less than half of all food additives … have been the subject of any published toxicology studies” (pg. 110). This can lead to a variety of health effects, like the ones that come from sodium. Most of the sodium we consume come from additives that add no nutrition or flavor, but still cause the negative effects that salt does, like high blood pressure. These additives can be even worse than regular salt because sodium based additives “bypass the body’s ability to detect and regulate sodium intake” (pg. 47), leading to easier over-consumption. And sodium is just one chemical we know the effects of – there are thousands more which we don’t. That's some pretty scary stuff roomie - I'm worried about what we may be eating.
Arpita, please don’t think that I am shaming you with this information – I know how hard it is to eat healthy, especially in college. And most of the time, it’s not even really your fault. Warner writes that “processed foods are designed to be delicious and appealingly convenient” (pg. 117). Moreover, it’s not just Warner who thinks this; science proves it! The article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food” states that processed junk foods are carefully designed to make us constantly crave them, from the way they look to exactly how they taste. Being aware of everything in our food, though, can help us to reject processed foods that are bad for us. Warner notes, “the more you know about the story of food additives” and processed foods in general, “the more hollow the appeal seems” (pg. 117).
Now, I'm aware that was some pretty bleak information. So, if everything is awful for us, what is the solution? Warner thinks it’s surprisingly simple: cooking. She says, “cooking is the great divide between good and bad eating” (pg. 220). At first, I thought this was a crazy proposition – who has time to cook? Turns out, most of us do. Laura Shapiro, author of Something from the Oven, states that the food industry has convinced women that they don’t have enough time to cook. While this may be true in some cases, it is often false, and an idea of the food industry, not ourselves. If we really want to take control of our health, we have to start with our food. So, maybe, when we both get home tonight, we can try cooking a meal together rather than just eating Ramen. I’m sure we can find the time.
Best,
Alyssa
Children and Food Advertisements
Topic Explorer Midterm
Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood. Directed by Adriana Barbaro and
Jeremy Earp. Performed by Daniel Acuff, Enola Aird, and Michael Brody. USA: Media Education Foundation, 2008.
The documentary I viewed was a project done by the Media Education Foundation in 2008 entitled Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood. The purpose of this documentary was to give an overview of how advertising to children has changed over the past 40 years and the impact that this has on our youth. A major theme of this documentary was that “this generation of children are being marketed to like never before”. In the 1980’s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moved to impose regulations on kids advertising. Lobbying efforts, many of which were done by food companies like Kellogg, convinced Congress to remove many of the FTC’s powers, rendering them unable to impose regulations on children’s media. The power of food lobbying has been seen before in sources like the Food Inc. documentary. Since then, advertisers have pushed to market their products to kids in order to get a share of their increasing buying power. In order to secure more profits, companies have moved to promote their brands to increasingly young children, ensuring lifelong customers. Social scientists have been employed to help with this goal. The documentary also noted that advertisers take advantage of children’s attachments to characters in order to sell them products like junk food. This is why Happy Meals always have a themed toy. Another key theme in this documentary is that kids are often manipulated by ads because they do not have the cognitive abilities to know when someone is trying to sell them something. Schools, which should teach reasoning skills, are becoming overrun with ads, leaving kids even more confused and vulnerable. For example, soda machines in schools have been linked to childhood obesity rates increasing. One of the strengths of this documentary was its holistic approach to describing the impact of advertising for kids over time and place, allowing for crucial insight into how youth markets operate. However, in doing this, the focus was not on food advertisements, which took away from some of my understanding. Another limitation of this documentary was its age, meaning the impact of the internet in food advertising could not be fully analyzed.
Blades, Mark, Caroline Oates, Fran Blumberg, and Barrie Gutner, eds. Advertising to
Children: New Direction, New Media. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
The book Advertising to Children: New Direction, New Media compiles facts and arguments surrounding advertising to children in one source. The introduction of this book begins with a discussion of children as a general target of advertisers. It is mentioned that children are easily manipulated, and it is not “until they are 8 or 9 years old” that “children can articulate opinions or judgements about... advertisements and the motives of advertisers” (5). The book suggests that, throughout time, advertisements have become more subtle, allowing new media to take advantage of children. Regulation is difficult, especially in regards to the internet. Chapter 5 of the book, titled “Commercial Food Promotion to Children”, starts with a discussion that rates of obesity in children has been steadily rising. For example, “[a]n estimated 18 percent (approximately 14 million children) in the European Union are overweight” (50). Obesity leads to lifelong health complications, and is often the result of diets too low in fruits and vegetables, and too high in saturated fats and overall calories: a diet that food advertisements promote. In the US, 49% of all ads are for food, and 91% of those were for food high in fat, sodium, or added sugars (56). Studies show that the number of food ads that a child views is positively correlated with being overweight. While this correlation could be from both unhealthy food or lack of exercise from watching TV, it is evident that commercials designed to attract a child's attention are resulting in poor health. Additionally, a 2008 study showed that children have brand preferences after viewing food advertisements, suggesting that food preferences and consumption can be influenced by advertisements. Parents surveyed also noted that they were more likely to buy a product for a child if they request it, and research shows that children request food based on advertisements. Unlike the documentary I viewed, this book was helpful in that it provided specific evidence based on scientific studies. This allowed for a deeper understanding of the connection between food advertisements and children’s eating habits. Another strength of this book is that it is more recent, and thus includes information that is more recent. Finally, Advertising to Children also provided evidence that food advertisements promoting healthy food can have a positive impact on children, offering a more balanced view on children’s food advertising than other sources did.
Smithers, Rebecca. "Websites of Kinder Chocolate Banned over Ads Targeting
Children." The Gaurdian, September 18, 2018. Accessed October 15, 2018.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/19/websites-of-kinder-chocolate-
banned-over-ads-targeting-children.
The first article I read was “Websites of Kinder chocolate banned over ads targeting children”. The article reported on a series on bans that Kinder chocolate received on their websites, app, and YouTube channel due to them promoting foods high in fat and sugar to children. Promoting these foods breaks the rules set by the Committee of Advertising Practice. The games developed by Kinder were not deliberate advertisements, but rather promoted their products through gameplay, showing the modern shift in advertisement methods. Kinder responded by stating that parents should monitor their children’s online gameplay, showing that there is a debate over who should monitor children’s ad intake. This issue is similar to concerns in Chile, where obesity rates among children are high. In his article, "In Sweeping War on Obesity, Chile Slays Tony the Tiger", Andrew Jacobs discusses new governmental policy that bans the use of children's food mascots in Chilean food advertising. Chile's concerns echo that of the UK's in this article, where there is a concern that children will be drawn to unhealthy products because of fun mascots and games.
Ramirez, Stefanie. "Regulating Food Advertising to Children." The Regulatory Review,
August 9, 2018. Accessed October 15, 2018.
https://www.theregreview.org/2018/08/09/ramirez-regulating-food-advertising-
children/.
The second news article I read was “Regulating Food Advertising to Children”. This article analyzed two scientific articles that looked into various food advertisement regulation schemes. The findings of the article suggest that self-regulation, where industries regulate themselves, is not very effective in promoting children’s health. Self-regulation is the method used in the US, and the two scientific authors Reeve and Magnusson found this approach failed to instigate improvements. Instead, Reeve and Magnusson suggest an “accountability model” where the government plays a central role in advertisement regulation. This article revealed the need for an overhaul in current food advertisement regulation.
Noone, Yasmin. "Why Aren't There More Ads Promoting Vegetables?" Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), October 3, 2018. Accessed October 15, 2018.
https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/2018/10/01/why-arent-there-more-ads-
promoting-vegetables.
The final article I read, “Why aren’t there more ads promoting vegetables?”, focuses on the issue that food advertisements are heavily biased towards unhealthy food promotion. Recent research shows children are exposed to twice as many advertisements for unhealthy food than healthy ones. Additionally, only a small portion of the population eat enough fruits and vegetables. The whole-food industry does not have the money to spend on food advertisements when compared to big retailers. This is a problem, as healthy food advertisements can influence children to eat better foods. Thus, food advertisements are not necessarily bad for kids.
Conclusion
When looking at the topic of children and food advertisements, it is clear that this is an important issue with far-reaching health consequences. The oversaturation of children’s media with ads has helped contribute to the obesity epidemic and leads to lifelong manipulation of children. Messages from youth often stick with children throughout their lives, and child advertising occurs at a time when children are unable to reason rationally, leading to misconstrued ideas and perceptions of certain foods. The solution to food advertisements will likely be found in new regulation of children’s advertising – a feat that is easier said than done due to the massive push back from large food companies. The path towards this new policy and promotion of health in children’s health is fascinating to me. I am particularly interested in using healthy food advertisements as a way to promote good health choices and in learning more about the various marketing techniques used by different food companies. However, I believe this topic may be difficult to pursue from a research standpoint. One of the biggest obstacles I encountered in my research was a lack of reliable, relevant sources on this topic. This is mostly because children’s advertisement methods have changed so rapidly with the rise of the internet, to the point where relevant research has not yet been done. I believe that my group members may have more insight than I do on this topic, considering one is an advertising major, but I still believe the novelty of this issue may limit the viability of children’s food advertisements as a topic for our group project. Additionally, I found it difficult to find sources that were not heavily biased towards the idea that all children’s advertisements are bad; an idea that was especially prevalent in the documentary I watched. There was also a geographic bias in my sources, as many of them focused on first world countries, like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Ultimately, I do think this would be an interesting topic to further explore, especially since everyone in our class grew up in an era of heavy food advertisements. The social science aspect of this topic is also fascinating, as food advertisement regulations have a rich history, and youth marketers employ a variety of social sciences, from psychology to sociology, to understand their consumer base. It would be especially interesting to see how social class affects kids’ food advertising, as other class readings, such as “From ‘Junk Food’ to ‘Treats’’’ by Wei-ting Chen, have shown social class is closely linked to childhood obesity. However, I believe that this topic just may not be suitable for the demands of our group project. If my group members feel confident in their ability to research this topic further, though, I would certainly be open to further pursuing this topic. There is a lot to learn about children’s food advertising, but this knowledge may be beyond our grasps as students working on a half semester long project.
Jeremy Earp. Performed by Daniel Acuff, Enola Aird, and Michael Brody. USA: Media Education Foundation, 2008.
The documentary I viewed was a project done by the Media Education Foundation in 2008 entitled Consuming Kids: The Commercialization of Childhood. The purpose of this documentary was to give an overview of how advertising to children has changed over the past 40 years and the impact that this has on our youth. A major theme of this documentary was that “this generation of children are being marketed to like never before”. In the 1980’s, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moved to impose regulations on kids advertising. Lobbying efforts, many of which were done by food companies like Kellogg, convinced Congress to remove many of the FTC’s powers, rendering them unable to impose regulations on children’s media. The power of food lobbying has been seen before in sources like the Food Inc. documentary. Since then, advertisers have pushed to market their products to kids in order to get a share of their increasing buying power. In order to secure more profits, companies have moved to promote their brands to increasingly young children, ensuring lifelong customers. Social scientists have been employed to help with this goal. The documentary also noted that advertisers take advantage of children’s attachments to characters in order to sell them products like junk food. This is why Happy Meals always have a themed toy. Another key theme in this documentary is that kids are often manipulated by ads because they do not have the cognitive abilities to know when someone is trying to sell them something. Schools, which should teach reasoning skills, are becoming overrun with ads, leaving kids even more confused and vulnerable. For example, soda machines in schools have been linked to childhood obesity rates increasing. One of the strengths of this documentary was its holistic approach to describing the impact of advertising for kids over time and place, allowing for crucial insight into how youth markets operate. However, in doing this, the focus was not on food advertisements, which took away from some of my understanding. Another limitation of this documentary was its age, meaning the impact of the internet in food advertising could not be fully analyzed.
Blades, Mark, Caroline Oates, Fran Blumberg, and Barrie Gutner, eds. Advertising to
Children: New Direction, New Media. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
The book Advertising to Children: New Direction, New Media compiles facts and arguments surrounding advertising to children in one source. The introduction of this book begins with a discussion of children as a general target of advertisers. It is mentioned that children are easily manipulated, and it is not “until they are 8 or 9 years old” that “children can articulate opinions or judgements about... advertisements and the motives of advertisers” (5). The book suggests that, throughout time, advertisements have become more subtle, allowing new media to take advantage of children. Regulation is difficult, especially in regards to the internet. Chapter 5 of the book, titled “Commercial Food Promotion to Children”, starts with a discussion that rates of obesity in children has been steadily rising. For example, “[a]n estimated 18 percent (approximately 14 million children) in the European Union are overweight” (50). Obesity leads to lifelong health complications, and is often the result of diets too low in fruits and vegetables, and too high in saturated fats and overall calories: a diet that food advertisements promote. In the US, 49% of all ads are for food, and 91% of those were for food high in fat, sodium, or added sugars (56). Studies show that the number of food ads that a child views is positively correlated with being overweight. While this correlation could be from both unhealthy food or lack of exercise from watching TV, it is evident that commercials designed to attract a child's attention are resulting in poor health. Additionally, a 2008 study showed that children have brand preferences after viewing food advertisements, suggesting that food preferences and consumption can be influenced by advertisements. Parents surveyed also noted that they were more likely to buy a product for a child if they request it, and research shows that children request food based on advertisements. Unlike the documentary I viewed, this book was helpful in that it provided specific evidence based on scientific studies. This allowed for a deeper understanding of the connection between food advertisements and children’s eating habits. Another strength of this book is that it is more recent, and thus includes information that is more recent. Finally, Advertising to Children also provided evidence that food advertisements promoting healthy food can have a positive impact on children, offering a more balanced view on children’s food advertising than other sources did.
Smithers, Rebecca. "Websites of Kinder Chocolate Banned over Ads Targeting
Children." The Gaurdian, September 18, 2018. Accessed October 15, 2018.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/sep/19/websites-of-kinder-chocolate-
banned-over-ads-targeting-children.
The first article I read was “Websites of Kinder chocolate banned over ads targeting children”. The article reported on a series on bans that Kinder chocolate received on their websites, app, and YouTube channel due to them promoting foods high in fat and sugar to children. Promoting these foods breaks the rules set by the Committee of Advertising Practice. The games developed by Kinder were not deliberate advertisements, but rather promoted their products through gameplay, showing the modern shift in advertisement methods. Kinder responded by stating that parents should monitor their children’s online gameplay, showing that there is a debate over who should monitor children’s ad intake. This issue is similar to concerns in Chile, where obesity rates among children are high. In his article, "In Sweeping War on Obesity, Chile Slays Tony the Tiger", Andrew Jacobs discusses new governmental policy that bans the use of children's food mascots in Chilean food advertising. Chile's concerns echo that of the UK's in this article, where there is a concern that children will be drawn to unhealthy products because of fun mascots and games.
Ramirez, Stefanie. "Regulating Food Advertising to Children." The Regulatory Review,
August 9, 2018. Accessed October 15, 2018.
https://www.theregreview.org/2018/08/09/ramirez-regulating-food-advertising-
children/.
The second news article I read was “Regulating Food Advertising to Children”. This article analyzed two scientific articles that looked into various food advertisement regulation schemes. The findings of the article suggest that self-regulation, where industries regulate themselves, is not very effective in promoting children’s health. Self-regulation is the method used in the US, and the two scientific authors Reeve and Magnusson found this approach failed to instigate improvements. Instead, Reeve and Magnusson suggest an “accountability model” where the government plays a central role in advertisement regulation. This article revealed the need for an overhaul in current food advertisement regulation.
Noone, Yasmin. "Why Aren't There More Ads Promoting Vegetables?" Special Broadcasting Service (SBS), October 3, 2018. Accessed October 15, 2018.
https://www.sbs.com.au/food/article/2018/10/01/why-arent-there-more-ads-
promoting-vegetables.
The final article I read, “Why aren’t there more ads promoting vegetables?”, focuses on the issue that food advertisements are heavily biased towards unhealthy food promotion. Recent research shows children are exposed to twice as many advertisements for unhealthy food than healthy ones. Additionally, only a small portion of the population eat enough fruits and vegetables. The whole-food industry does not have the money to spend on food advertisements when compared to big retailers. This is a problem, as healthy food advertisements can influence children to eat better foods. Thus, food advertisements are not necessarily bad for kids.
Conclusion
When looking at the topic of children and food advertisements, it is clear that this is an important issue with far-reaching health consequences. The oversaturation of children’s media with ads has helped contribute to the obesity epidemic and leads to lifelong manipulation of children. Messages from youth often stick with children throughout their lives, and child advertising occurs at a time when children are unable to reason rationally, leading to misconstrued ideas and perceptions of certain foods. The solution to food advertisements will likely be found in new regulation of children’s advertising – a feat that is easier said than done due to the massive push back from large food companies. The path towards this new policy and promotion of health in children’s health is fascinating to me. I am particularly interested in using healthy food advertisements as a way to promote good health choices and in learning more about the various marketing techniques used by different food companies. However, I believe this topic may be difficult to pursue from a research standpoint. One of the biggest obstacles I encountered in my research was a lack of reliable, relevant sources on this topic. This is mostly because children’s advertisement methods have changed so rapidly with the rise of the internet, to the point where relevant research has not yet been done. I believe that my group members may have more insight than I do on this topic, considering one is an advertising major, but I still believe the novelty of this issue may limit the viability of children’s food advertisements as a topic for our group project. Additionally, I found it difficult to find sources that were not heavily biased towards the idea that all children’s advertisements are bad; an idea that was especially prevalent in the documentary I watched. There was also a geographic bias in my sources, as many of them focused on first world countries, like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Ultimately, I do think this would be an interesting topic to further explore, especially since everyone in our class grew up in an era of heavy food advertisements. The social science aspect of this topic is also fascinating, as food advertisement regulations have a rich history, and youth marketers employ a variety of social sciences, from psychology to sociology, to understand their consumer base. It would be especially interesting to see how social class affects kids’ food advertising, as other class readings, such as “From ‘Junk Food’ to ‘Treats’’’ by Wei-ting Chen, have shown social class is closely linked to childhood obesity. However, I believe that this topic just may not be suitable for the demands of our group project. If my group members feel confident in their ability to research this topic further, though, I would certainly be open to further pursuing this topic. There is a lot to learn about children’s food advertising, but this knowledge may be beyond our grasps as students working on a half semester long project.
A Grocery Store Can Be So Much More
Grocery Ethnography
Food is one of the great unifying factors among humans. Unlike people, however, the establishments at which we obtain food are not created equal. From massive, intimidating stores, to individual famers, the places where one can purchase food products are numerous. To explore more of the culture around buying food, I visited three distinct grocers in the East Lansing/Okemos area: (1) Meijer, a commercial grocery store chain, (2) Aldi, a small, European style grocery store, and (3) the East Lansing (EL) Farmer’s Market, a once-a-week gathering of various vendors.
When entering each of these markets, one of the first things I noticed were the customers. At Meijer, there were mainly people by themselves doing their shopping. People seldom talked to each other whilst shopping, unless apologies were necessary due to a social mistake, and customers often moved quickly through the store. This suggests that those in the store were just there to get groceries – I got the impression that no one was at Meijer socially. A similar lack of social interaction was present at Aldi. At both stores, the customers were polite, but not friendly. At Aldi there seemed to be more families present, suggesting Aldi was a potential place to spend time together. However, neither Aldi nor Meijer seemed as family friendly when compared to the EL Farmer’s Market. Almost everyone present was with their family or a group of friends. Kids were playing and running around, not just sitting in carts. All the customers seemed happy and lively.
In addition to how people were acting, the socioeconomic status of the shoppers was also evident. Most of the people of Meijer, Aldi, and the EL Farmer’s Market seemed to be middle class. This is most likely a result of the shops being present in the East Lansing/Okemos area, where most people are fairly well off. At Aldi, the overall socioeconomic status of the customers may have been a bit lower because part of Aldi’s draw is that prices are low. This may have led to the observation that the crowd seemed more diverse at Aldi than Meijer. All three establishments accepted SNAP benefits, but only the EL Farmer’s Market prominently displayed this fact, suggesting that those of a lower economic class may have tended more towards the farmer’s market. However, this did not necessarily mean that the EL Farmer's Market was filled with lower income people - in fact, it mainly seemed to be populated with middle class citizens. It is more likely that, even thought the EL Farmer's Market was welcoming of all socio-economic statuses, certain barriers like transportation and education keep low income attendance down. This may have been why information about the SNAP benefits needed to be so heavily advertised - to help educate others. In addition, many at the EL Farmer's Market may have wanted to attend an event that seemed welcoming to feel good about their own choices, even if those that were being welcomed weren't present. I do feel, though, that of all three establishments, the farmer's market would have been the marketplace where a lower income person would have "belonged" the most, mostly because the atmosphere and people did seem the most welcoming there.
Along with the customers themselves, another major factor of the stores I visited was how they were structured. At Meijer, the ceilings were high and the overall layout was open. Everything in Meijer had a specific place, and large signs marked where everything was. This made it easy for shoppers to find the specific products they wanted. Once arriving at a particular section, though, I noticed that those in Meijer were bombarded with choices, sales, and brands. This was probably an intentional design, as Meijer’s goal is to get you to buy as much as possible. Michael Moss, from his article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”, notes that the “industry’s most reliable method for getting consumers to buy more” is “the line extension”, or the introduction of many products with slight variations. This is why the chip aisle at Meijer had so many different flavors– the goal of this setup is to get consumers to buy a lot of one product. This is in contrast to Aldi and the farmer’s market, which did not have as many brands. At Aldi, only a few variations of a product exist, meaning the consumer has less of a choice. Aldi also carried European specialty items, making it distinct from the other two establishments. Unlike Meijer, though, Aldi does not have clearly marked aisles, and most of the customers wandered the aisles more so than in Meijer. This setup can lead to more purchases of random items. At the farmer’s market, most of the vendors present had products advertised with handcrafted signs. The products were of a high quality, and many vendors advertised “homemade” or “organic” items. Everything at the farmer’s market seemed setup in a way that provided a fun experience rather than just a means to buy products, from the closeness of the vendor areas, to the samples present at various tables. This made the EL Framer's Market feel more wholesome, in a way. While I was being sold things, I genuinely felt like those things actually meant something to the vendors, so they should also mean something to me. It felt more satisfying to buy produce from the man who had grown it himself than from a shelf at Meijer. At a store like Meijer, the closeness present at a farmer’s market would have felt socially unacceptable. At the EL Farmer's Market, though, the small space of the market actually added to its charm and marketability.
Overall, the atmosphere of each store I visited varied a lot from the other two. It was clear that Meijer was a business meant to provide food. I got a detached feeling from Meijer, exemplified in both the employees that did not talk to customers unless they had to, and the music that played over speakers that was more ads than music. Aldi, in contrast, also felt like a business, but a more laid back one. People did not move as quickly through Aldi, and the lack of employees made for an individualistic experience. Soft, slow music played in the background, encouraging quiet wandering. The EL Farmer’s Market, by far, had the most lively and community-based atmosphere. From the live music playing, to the smiling consumers and vendors, only the farmer’s market gave off a truly happy vibe. Furthermore, the farmer’s market was the only establishment that was also actively promoting healthy living. The majority of the food being sold at the farmer’s market was whole foods, which was not the case at Aldi or Meijer. Additionally, the EL farmer’s market allowed SNAP recipients to double up their food dollars, encouraging the buying of produce. The documentary A Place at a Table talks about the need for access to healthy foods as a solution to hunger. The EL farmer’s market actively encouraged this, making it not just a place to buy food, but also a place combating hunger and encouraging health. I have been to the EL Farmer’s Market in the past where they had an array of booths promoting healthy lifestyles – something that I have never seen in a Meijer or Aldi. While food was central in all three locations, community and health was only actively present in one, making the farmer’s market culture unique in comparison to commercialized food businesses.
When entering each of these markets, one of the first things I noticed were the customers. At Meijer, there were mainly people by themselves doing their shopping. People seldom talked to each other whilst shopping, unless apologies were necessary due to a social mistake, and customers often moved quickly through the store. This suggests that those in the store were just there to get groceries – I got the impression that no one was at Meijer socially. A similar lack of social interaction was present at Aldi. At both stores, the customers were polite, but not friendly. At Aldi there seemed to be more families present, suggesting Aldi was a potential place to spend time together. However, neither Aldi nor Meijer seemed as family friendly when compared to the EL Farmer’s Market. Almost everyone present was with their family or a group of friends. Kids were playing and running around, not just sitting in carts. All the customers seemed happy and lively.
In addition to how people were acting, the socioeconomic status of the shoppers was also evident. Most of the people of Meijer, Aldi, and the EL Farmer’s Market seemed to be middle class. This is most likely a result of the shops being present in the East Lansing/Okemos area, where most people are fairly well off. At Aldi, the overall socioeconomic status of the customers may have been a bit lower because part of Aldi’s draw is that prices are low. This may have led to the observation that the crowd seemed more diverse at Aldi than Meijer. All three establishments accepted SNAP benefits, but only the EL Farmer’s Market prominently displayed this fact, suggesting that those of a lower economic class may have tended more towards the farmer’s market. However, this did not necessarily mean that the EL Farmer's Market was filled with lower income people - in fact, it mainly seemed to be populated with middle class citizens. It is more likely that, even thought the EL Farmer's Market was welcoming of all socio-economic statuses, certain barriers like transportation and education keep low income attendance down. This may have been why information about the SNAP benefits needed to be so heavily advertised - to help educate others. In addition, many at the EL Farmer's Market may have wanted to attend an event that seemed welcoming to feel good about their own choices, even if those that were being welcomed weren't present. I do feel, though, that of all three establishments, the farmer's market would have been the marketplace where a lower income person would have "belonged" the most, mostly because the atmosphere and people did seem the most welcoming there.
Along with the customers themselves, another major factor of the stores I visited was how they were structured. At Meijer, the ceilings were high and the overall layout was open. Everything in Meijer had a specific place, and large signs marked where everything was. This made it easy for shoppers to find the specific products they wanted. Once arriving at a particular section, though, I noticed that those in Meijer were bombarded with choices, sales, and brands. This was probably an intentional design, as Meijer’s goal is to get you to buy as much as possible. Michael Moss, from his article “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food”, notes that the “industry’s most reliable method for getting consumers to buy more” is “the line extension”, or the introduction of many products with slight variations. This is why the chip aisle at Meijer had so many different flavors– the goal of this setup is to get consumers to buy a lot of one product. This is in contrast to Aldi and the farmer’s market, which did not have as many brands. At Aldi, only a few variations of a product exist, meaning the consumer has less of a choice. Aldi also carried European specialty items, making it distinct from the other two establishments. Unlike Meijer, though, Aldi does not have clearly marked aisles, and most of the customers wandered the aisles more so than in Meijer. This setup can lead to more purchases of random items. At the farmer’s market, most of the vendors present had products advertised with handcrafted signs. The products were of a high quality, and many vendors advertised “homemade” or “organic” items. Everything at the farmer’s market seemed setup in a way that provided a fun experience rather than just a means to buy products, from the closeness of the vendor areas, to the samples present at various tables. This made the EL Framer's Market feel more wholesome, in a way. While I was being sold things, I genuinely felt like those things actually meant something to the vendors, so they should also mean something to me. It felt more satisfying to buy produce from the man who had grown it himself than from a shelf at Meijer. At a store like Meijer, the closeness present at a farmer’s market would have felt socially unacceptable. At the EL Farmer's Market, though, the small space of the market actually added to its charm and marketability.
Overall, the atmosphere of each store I visited varied a lot from the other two. It was clear that Meijer was a business meant to provide food. I got a detached feeling from Meijer, exemplified in both the employees that did not talk to customers unless they had to, and the music that played over speakers that was more ads than music. Aldi, in contrast, also felt like a business, but a more laid back one. People did not move as quickly through Aldi, and the lack of employees made for an individualistic experience. Soft, slow music played in the background, encouraging quiet wandering. The EL Farmer’s Market, by far, had the most lively and community-based atmosphere. From the live music playing, to the smiling consumers and vendors, only the farmer’s market gave off a truly happy vibe. Furthermore, the farmer’s market was the only establishment that was also actively promoting healthy living. The majority of the food being sold at the farmer’s market was whole foods, which was not the case at Aldi or Meijer. Additionally, the EL farmer’s market allowed SNAP recipients to double up their food dollars, encouraging the buying of produce. The documentary A Place at a Table talks about the need for access to healthy foods as a solution to hunger. The EL farmer’s market actively encouraged this, making it not just a place to buy food, but also a place combating hunger and encouraging health. I have been to the EL Farmer’s Market in the past where they had an array of booths promoting healthy lifestyles – something that I have never seen in a Meijer or Aldi. While food was central in all three locations, community and health was only actively present in one, making the farmer’s market culture unique in comparison to commercialized food businesses.