FOOD BELIEFS: Why is it so difficult to change them? And why are they so sticky?

food beliefs: Why is it so difficult to change them?
Photo by Ave Calvar Martinez from Pexels

Or what I learned about food beliefs from a cooking lesson 

We all have Food Beliefs. They are personal and unshakable. We defend them with vigour and conviction. But why? Why is it so difficult to question them? To look at them in an objective way. Let alone change them. 

You may be thinking “ Not me. I don’t care much about food.” or “Not me. I have thought long and hard about food considered all my options and chosen a diet that suites me best”.

Fair enough. Bear with me for just a little bit longer. What follows might shake up your personal food beliefs. Whether you are just going with the flow or have created a structured way of nourishing yourself, your beliefs, yes, yours, are carefully crafted by systems to extract the most of them. Media, health, religion and ultimately economies all squabble for the largest piece of the cake. Namely your personal beliefs, including the ones about food. Because food and our food beliefs are not only fuel for our bodies but also fuel for the economy.

Here is a glimpse into how I arrived to the realisation that food, and my beliefs about it are worth trillions. They are freely traded in supermarkets and on stock markets.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT 

Half cut vegetables, dirty knifes and still hot pans are scatted all over the kitchen worktop. The place looks like the Colosseum after a gladiator’s fight with lions. 10 pairs of eyes are glued to the screen while savouring their culinary masterpieces. The screen is conveniently turned away from the carnage that reigns  behind in the kitchen. Everyone is exhausted after what feels like a 2 hour boxing match. 

This is just a glimpse into the aftermath of the online cooking classes we have with friends regularly.  A chef, a video call and a bunch of ingredients turned into culinary delights. We have virtually travelled around the world learning the ins and outs of Greek, Indian, Italian, Bulgaria, German and Moroccan cuisine.  A chef somewhere lost in the vast world imparts swiftly instructions on Zoom, Webex or Skype and all of us, all aspiring chefs, try to follow along. The chef can do these recipes in her or his dreams. Chopping peppers within seconds, tossing the veggies in the pan and whisking the cream. All of this simultaneously while continuing to impart instructions. We are all following roughly the scenario, trying to keep up from our respective kitchens in London, Geneva, Frankfurt, sometimes even from more exotic locations in Italy, Israel or Greece. 

The team is always the same. A bunch of friends scatted all over the world. Defying lockdown. Finding alternative ways to have fun together. The heat is on, literally as stoves and ovens are light and pre-heated. Everyone is filled with adrenaline and in high spirits. It is a celebration of culinary achievement and human audacity. By the time we are finished with cooking and get to savour our works of exquisite gourmet art we are exhausted, but hungry and happy. The conversation are always lively. As if we can solve all the world’s challenges: space travel, climate change, looming epidemics and of course food. Everyone has an opinion.  

At this point, I have a confession to make. To my friends and to all of you. I am not a big dessert fan. By the time we get to do the dessert I have such a huge backlog of pots and pans, managing three little helpers who invariably end up squabbling, that dessert feels like a real overkill. In all of the cooking classes we have done so far I don’t think I have managed to do the dessert once. At least not during the class itself. Apologies to all the great chefs out there. No harm is meant.

But is it really that I had no time to do the dessert or is there more to it? Did I really lose steam by the end of the cooking session? Or did I see dessert as a non-essential part of the meal?

I have grown up in a household were a kilo of sugar would last our entire family for 1-2 years. It was offered to guests to sweeten their coffee and used for the occasional cake when we had dinner parties. There was no cookie jar at home and dessert was not part of the daily menu. Sweets were treats we had when we went out. Usually spoiled by our grandparents who took us to “sweeteries”, the Western equivalent of coffeeshops or bakeries and the occasional ice-cream at the seaside. Even if no one told me that sugar was bad, I grew up with the conviction that sugar is not an integral part of the human diet and is a treat we have on special occasions. Don’t get me wrong. Our cooking classes are very special occasions. So no wonder, I just dismissed the sweet part of our culinary endeavours as non-essential. This is how I discovered that I have deep seeded food beliefs and inadvertently I perpetuated them in my own home and life.

Now, just pose for a second and think what food beliefs do you have? About fat, sugar, dairy, meat ? What do you eat and why? What don’t you eat and why? 

My better half is convinced that butter is bad for you, and insists to eat vegetable fat spread which somehow ends up being called “butter” as well. Likewise, many people believe that they will not survive if they do not eat animal flesh, daily. Others have strong convictions about killing and harming animals to feed ourselves. And we have just scratched the surface of the food beliefs pyramid. The above are mainly convictions which are based on our individual and family values. Mix this with a pinch of collective, namely cultural and religious, food beliefs and you get an explosive cocktail. As one of our cooking companions says: “Don’t go there, food beliefs are too touchy.”

However, I dare you to open Pandora’s box. How are your personal food beliefs affected by your culture? Are they aligned with your religious beliefs? Every culture and religion without an exception has predominant food convictions and dogmas. Fasting, Koshare, Halal, secret cows and pork aversion are all examples of collective food belief systems. And each one of this is a multi-million industry.

THE PRICE TAG ON OUR FOOD BELIEFS

So, no wonder the food lobby is so strong, constantly trying to curate our food beliefs and extract “value” from them. They sponsor research and programmes to show how valuable and essential their ingredients are for humankind and its health. Just google any of these and you will find endless arguments how important fat, sugar and animal protein are for human health. While conveniently omitting to mention that many of the food products we consume today are filled with artificial colours, flavours and preservatives, busting the quantity at the expense of the quality. And the media plays are cardinal roll in all of this. Just think for a moment. Why has a bottle half full with sugar become synonymous will a belly-padded, red-clothed, white-bearded man we call lovingly Santa? Or why are the golden arches tantamount with convenient and consistently the same food, even if it is filled with the above-mentioned 3 ingredients? 

Economies have been quick to capitalise on our food beliefs. They have even created labels to trigger our emotional responses and consume more of their products. Nowadays there are thousands of labels for everything. Next time you go grocery shopping try to spot some of these: Organic, Vegan, Vegetarian, Local, Seasonal, Kosher, Sugar free, Palm Oil Free, Gluten Free, Lactose Free, Fair Trade, free range eggs. The list goes on and on, and on. Everything sells. There are more labels on supermarket products than decoration on a Christmas tree. Labels that capitalise on our food beliefs and put not only a price tag on them, but charge a hefty premium for the privilege. Yes, a privilege to consume clean, nutritious and respectfully produced food. 

As I wrote in The Price Tag is On You:

“Once again clean and nutritious food is a privilege and not a right. It is mind-boggling how fresh fruit and vegetable can cost more than artificial colours, flavours and sweeteners packaged and labelled as juice. Same goes for processed food which is several times cheaper than buying fresh products and cooking from scratch. However, the cherry on the icing is the premium we pay not to have our bodies treated as junk containers and have them filled with chemicals, pesticides and fertilizers. Everyone who is at least a bit health conscious knows that an organic label does not necessarily guarantee clean food, but certainly fetches a premium. There is surely something completely messed up in our food production chain. When did it become cheaper to produce tomato soup powder filled with artificial flavours and colours, than to grow a bunch of tomatoes?” 

Curious about what other beliefs man-made systems use to mould us into products? Read The Price Tag is On You.

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