During a recent presentation, I made the point that consumers now factor in animal health and planet health in addition to personal health when making purchase decisions about food. How animals are raised and treated, how they go to slaughter, and whether they are given antibiotics or hormones during their lives are of interest to consumers. The sustainability of crops, soil health and water usage impact use of the natural resources on our planet.
As a nutrition professional, I love that consumers are taking such a strong interest in their food and that technology allows us to track our food supply, providing details from the farm to the grocery store shelf.
My concern arises when animal health or planet health takes too strong of a priority over personal health. We now hear stories of parents who aren’t buying produce for their families because they can’t afford organic produce. Or retail grocery stores who are only going to carry natural and organic products. While in California earlier this year, I found fish in the grocery store that offered a code I could use to track this exact piece of fish to know who caught it in which body of water off of which vessel on an exact date. The four-ounce piece of fish also cost more than $11.
At the end of the day, the role of food is to fuel the human body, and the food choices we make must keep our bodies healthy to allow us to live to a ripe old age. There are great benefits of eating any produce for nourishing the human body, whether or not that produce is organically produced. An organic cookie is still a cookie, and an apple would still be a better choice. Fish is a lean source of protein, and depending on the type, can provide healthy fats, regardless of where it is caught.
I would also contend that in the U.S., we have food companies that are already attending to animal and planet health by following good manufacturing practices as a core principle of their business. What we hear about in the media is the icing on the cake, the taking it to the next level, the future of managing our resources more efficiently and effectively.
While animal and planet health are important, making food purchase decisions based on personal health still needs to be the priority.