Review

Consuming with care

What the label doesn’t tell you
Sue Dibb
Thorsons, 1997, £6.99

Thinking about this review, I dug out some earlier resources from my Food Politics box: from the mid-80s were the MAFF pamphlet Look at the Label and the Soil Association’s response, Look Again at the Label.

A comparison between these and Sue Dibb’s new book — notwithstanding inevitable differences in detail and analysis between a leaflet and a handbook — is indicative of the changes in social and cultural context over the last decade.

The ideological emphasis on ‘freedom to choose’ is starkly displayed in our supermarkets, and the notion of ‘informed choice’ is reinforced both by ever more sophisticated marketing on the part of the food industry and by the breadth of knowledge consumers bring to their food shopping. This book will certainly enable its readers to become extremely well informed about the constituents of food products, food legislation, and the likely impact on their health of ingredients and processes.

The book usefully brings together much of the campaigning and research that The Food Commission, of which Sue Dibbs is co-director, has conducted over the last 10 years. In that respect it is not just an accessible handbook for those of us — all of us — who buy and eat food, but also a reliable reference book to explain the intricacies of BSE and farming practices, controversy over fats, genetically-modified organisms, so-called slimming foods and advertising targeted at children, among many other topics.

Particularly valuable is its analysis of the language and syntax designed to beguile the unwary shopper and eater.

For example, ‘fresh’ fruit that is in fact ‘coated with food-grade animal-based wax... to maintain freshness’; ‘free range’ eggs or poultry from flocks of up to 7,000 birds whose diet contains many additives and drugs and which are exposed to the stress of artificial daylight to maximise production; the meaninglessness of ‘lite’ and ‘light’; ‘low fat’ foods high in sugars, sweeteners or other additives; olive oil ‘made in Italy’ but derived from olives from a variety of countries. In short, the complex, confusing lunacy of the food world.

The tone is only occasionally prescriptive, which is a welcome contrast to most health promotion materials which continue to give instruction veiled as information.

But with consumer rights come consumer responsibilities, as New Labour/new rhetoric is fond of reminding us. The balance of duty is laid heavily upon food purchasers, who remain predominantly women.

The book lists many campaigning organisations which are committed to working for policy changes, but harbours the implicit assumption that the discourse of consumerism is not to be violated.

Should we really have to mobilise a campaign to ensure, for instance, that ingredients or processes believed to be carcinogenic be outlawed? Do farmers, producers, manufacturers, retailers and legislators carry no responsibility for our food and our health?