UC Press Blog

In recent decades, many members of the public have come to see processed food as a problem that needs to be solved by eating "real" food and reforming the food system. But for many food industry professionals, the problem is not processed food or the food system itself, but misperceptions and irrational fears caused by the public's lack of scientific understanding. In her highly original book, Charlotte Biltekoff explores the role that science and scientific authority play in food industry responses to consumer concerns about what we eat and how it is made. As Biltekoff documents, industry efforts to correct public misperceptions through science-based education have consistently misunderstood the public's concerns, which she argues are an expression of politics. This has entrenched "food scientism" in public discourse and seeded a form of antipolitics, with broad consequences. Real Food, Real Facts offers lessons that extend well beyond food choice and will appeal to readers interested in how everyday people come to accept or reject scientific authority in matters of personal health and well-being.

Charlotte Biltekoff is Professor of American Studies and Food Science and Technology and Darrell Corti Endowed Professor in Food, Wine, and Culture, University of California, Davis. She is author of Eating Right in America: The Cultural Politics of Food and Health.

What motivated you to write the book?

I wanted to understand why many people in my world viewed processed food as bad and real food as good, while others—primarily food scientists and those involved with the food industry—saw these people as misguided and irrationally fearful. 

As a faculty member in Food Science and Technology in the College of Agriculture at UC Davis, I have often heard experts discuss how the public’s lack of scientific literacy leads to misinformed opposition to a variety of food system technologies—GMOs, irradiation, pesticides. They argued that these technologies could benefit the public if only they better understood them and were therefore less scared and less “anti-science.” As “processed food” became increasingly contentious, I studied the historical factors shaping the idea that good food was “real”—like concerns about obesity, sustainability, technological risks, regulatory laxity, and the influence of the food industry on information and policy. At the same time, I watched how the food industry responded. Often their efforts tried to correct assumed misperceptions about processed food with information and education. 

What role has science and scientific authority played in industry responses to consumer concerns about what we eat?

In the book I discuss three types of industry efforts to improve public attitudes toward processed food: public education campaigns, marketing and regulatory projects, and new approaches to communication. All were shaped by the longstanding, but widely discredited, view that public concerns about science and technology come from deficits of knowledge, understanding, trust, etc. (i.e. the deficit model of the public understanding of science), and the assumption that science is the most important way of knowing and making decisions about the food system (i.e. food scientism). Therefore, industry efforts to communicate with the public about processed food centered scientific facts, information, and authority even as they were clearly designed to promote a particular set of values.

Take the curriculum designed by “The Alliance to Feed the Future,” an organization formed by one of the food industry’s most powerful trade associations. A lesson for first graders called “Watching Mold Grow” was presented as a science experiment in which bread with and without preservatives was sprayed with water and left aside in the classroom for a few days. When the class later observed what happened to the bread (one piece grew mold), the teacher was instructed to talk about the important role preservatives play in keeping food fresh longer and reducing food waste. 

Food scientism is a potent form of antipolitics. It reframes political challenges as ignorance and shuts down possibilities for meaningful dialogue about the kind of food system we should have.

The public’s concerns about preservatives and other technologies in processing come from much larger political questions about the values, priorities, and policies shaping the food system. Yet here these concerns were reframed as a matter of scientific ignorance and subjected to assertions of scientific authority and neutrality, obscuring their own values and normative commitments. 

What is “food scientism?”

 “Food scientism” describes the assumptions experts make about the primacy of science in determining the questions that should be asked about the food system. Challenges in the food system are intricately social, cultural, and political, but food scientism—like scientism more generally—causes the issues to appear amenable primarily to scientific expertise. 

In 2015, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requested public comments about the use of the term “natural” on human food. Hundreds of comments were submitted by food companies and trade associations who urged the FDA to follow “science-based reason” rather than consumer expectations about what the term should mean. They argued the definition should be based on extent of processing, that potential economic impacts should be taken into consideration, that synthetic vitamins should be considered natural because of their health benefits, that products using biotechnology should be allowed to use natural claims because consumer views otherwise were irrational. 

The question of what “natural” should mean on food packaging is clearly not one that can be answered scientifically. Yet industry representatives redefined it as one that could only reasonably be determined by scientific expertise and then presented “science-based” definitions that served their interests. That is food scientism at work. Food scientism is a potent form of antipolitics. It reframes political challenges as ignorance and shuts down possibilities for meaningful dialogue about the kind of food system we should have.

What was something surprising or unexpected you found while researching the book?

I was very intrigued by the product development side of this story. I read hundreds of articles in the food industry press about how companies could adapt to the changing consumer demands for less processed food. Making processed food “natural” is a highly technological process, and hundreds of new ingredients have been designed to help manufacturers reformulate products so that ingredient lists appear simpler, shorter, and somehow closer to nature. Ingredients suppliers touted “label friendly” colors, preservatives, sweeteners, starches, thickeners, gums, dough conditioners, and more. For example, both Ingredion and Tate & Lyle developed lines of “functional clean label starches” that allowed manufacturers to remove “modified food starch” from the label and substitute it with ingredients that could instead be called “corn starch” or “rice starch.”

What is one key message you hope readers will take from the book?

How experts communicate with the public about science and technology in the food system really matters. It reflects expert views of the public and the ideal relationship between science and society. This is a deeply political issue and one that is far too often overlooked.