With endless options available, grocery shopping can feel overwhelming at times. Well, what if I told you that only 10 major corporations were responsible for manufacturing the majority of food brands on our shelves world-wide? Have you heard of “The Big 10”? Read on to discover how our limitless options are actually quite limited and usually unhealthy. Learn how to empower yourself and vote with your dollar.
Key Takeaways
The Illusion of Options
To address the elephant in the room, this article isn't about the election or the candidates running. What it will entail is a way that you as a consumer can take back your power and demand what products be available to you.
In this article I will address what decisions you, a conscious decision making, tax paying citizen, and seeker of health and longevity can do on a daily basis to vote with your dollar.
Enter any standard American grocery store and we are immediately inundated with copious amounts of options.
“Should I buy the grass-fed or pasture-raised? The gluten or grain-free? Organic or non-gmo? What’s the difference between plant-based and vegan? Is Organic actually organic? And which coconut water was it that Coca-Cola bought out again?” It feels like everytime you enter a Whole Foods or Trader Joes it’s a moral dilemma of good vs evil, right vs wrong. Or at least, that’s how I feel.
The other day I went shopping with my mom to our local grocery store and on the shopping list was bread. My mom is on a healing journey at the moment and was searching for a bread with zero sugar. So we started pulling some loaves off the shelf to read the ingredients.
Loaf after loaf, not only was it nearly impossible to find a loaf of bread that didn’t contain sugar but a noticeable trend was that every type of bread we pulled off the shelf, whether it was sourdough, whole wheat, seeded, or multigrain, contained almost the same exact set of ingredients…seed oils, preservatives, soy, sugar, the list goes on.
Whatever happened to yeast, flour and water? Isn’t that bread? The take away from that afternoon presented itself as the illusion that I, as the consumer, have options.
INGREDIENTS
MADE FROM: WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, WATER, SUGAR, WHEAT GLUTEN, SUNFLOWER SEEDS, WHEAT BERRIES, YEAST, FLAXSEED, OATS, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: SOYBEAN OIL, PEARLED BARLEY, RYE, TRITICALE, SALT, CORN GRITS, SUGARCANE FIBER, CALCIUM PROPIONATE AND SORBIC ACID TO EXTEND FRESHNESS, BUCKWHEAT, MILLET AND AMARANTH FLOURS, FLAXSEED AND BROWN RICE MEALS, WHOLE QUINOA, SORGHUM AND SPELT FLOURS, MONOGLYCERIDES, DATEM, SOY LECITHIN, WHEY.
CONTAINS: WHEAT, MILK, SOY.
“The Big 10”
If you haven’t seen the infographic of “The Big 10” Oxfam put out years ago it’s time you check it out. The infographic chart reveals that there are a whopping “Big 10” of food and beverage monsters out there that pretty much run the entire international food system while delivering us the illusion of choices. Not only does this deny consumers diversity but it disempowers local and small businesses to thrive in a world where just 10 major companies essentially buy out smaller companies and run it all.
I don’t know about you, but when I see this list I feel equally discouraged, knowing Nestle owns Gerber and Coca-Cola, Dasani…but also empowered knowing when I don’t select a brand from this list I am guaranteeing myself quality and diversity.
Fortunately what we’re witnessing lately are major shifts in the food industry. It’s appearing people are starting to actually care about where their food is coming from and what ingredients they are consuming. Thanks to globalization we are regularly informed about what our neighbors are up to and regulations in other countries. As a result, we know when our country is falling short.
An example of this shift is the recent controversy surrounding major cereal brand, Kelloggs. Kelloggs is currently under fire right now for using artificial dyes in their cereals that have already been banned in other countries, such as France, Norway, and the UK. In 2015, the brand pledged to switch their dyes for natural food colors such as carrot and blueberry juice by 2018, as they had in Canada. Such change has never occurred and now United States consumers are protesting, demanding natural ingredients for their children.
Why “voting” matters
Unfortunately, Kelloggs is just one example of a large company using harmful ingredients in their popularly consumed products. Oatly, a popular and seemingly healthy milk alternative recently made a major shift to their product line introducing Oatly’s Super Basic Oatmilk.
The new launch includes only 4 ingredients compared to its original carton which contained 11 ingredients in comparison. Why oat milk ever needed ingredients like dipotassium phosphate or low erucic acid rapeseed oil in the first place, is another question. I’m personally not a fan of most oat milks but that’s for a different discussion, another day.
What can be said is that Oatly heard the people and answered back by making a simple and more healthy option for their consumers. So, to take your power back, one piece of advice I can offer you, as the consumer, is to read the labels. Calorie, fat and sodium count are far less interesting to me than the actual ingredients and the origin of those ingredients.
Pay attention to how many miles your food has traveled to get into your hand and into your local grocery store. Take note if the brand you're about to purchase is owned by one of “The Big 10”. Try to support local brands, smaller companies, mom and pop shops. Not only are you boosting your local economy but you’re most likely consuming higher quality products that are creatively made, small-batch and with locally sourced ingredients.
Every time we pick up a product at the grocery store we are voting. We are voting with our dollar, and telling big businesses what we’re interested in.
Interest peaks sales, sales peak demand, demand peaks production. If we put down that Mars chocolate bar and instead go for a local, higher quality chocolate brand, we are supporting small scale cacao farmers and saying we don’t tolerate high sugar, low quality, unethically produced milk chocolate. Sales speak, companies hear us and before you know it, dark chocolate using ethically sourced beans is on the rise. As the consumer we have so much more say about what we see on our shelves than we realize.
Another actionable step you can take is to contact a companies CEO directly and demand higher quality practices and more ethically sourced ingredients. Oxfam has created an easy to navigate site called Behind the Brands, https://www.behindthebrands.org/
The website contains updated charts to showcase how these big brands are holding up with sustainable practices including transparency regarding women workers, farmers and land quality, for example. Each company is rated on a scorecard so you, as the consumer can verify for yourself the quality of the brand and products.
Oxfam has done all the work into investigating the transparency of these brands, rating them, sharing it publicly, and offering you links to contact and demand for higher quality products. It’s up to you to take the actionable steps.
TIP:
Final Thoughts
We really have a say when it comes to what shows up on our shelves and what ends up in our homes. Something I hear more often than not is, local and high quality costs more. While this may sometimes be the case, do the best you can with what you can.
Buy these products when they go on special or sale, favor lightly processed, simple ingredients as often as possible and lean toward Organic when you can.
If we think about it like this, you’ll either pay higher up front or more money over time when you end up racking up medical bills for illness after accumulated years of poor eating. Choose how far your dollar goes and pick brands that are aligned with your morals. Choose whose pocket your dollar goes into and take your power back!
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