Gyorgy Scrinis of University of Melbourne presented “Nutritionism, Big Food, and the Corporate Capture of Nutrition” at Harvard University on December 7. The talk provided a fascinatingly concise summary of Scrinis’ work on nutritionism to date and previews his new work, which directly engages how the corporate food industry has captured, appropriated, and co-opted the discourse of nutritionism in food product development and marketing.
The event was sponsored by Harvard-based working groups on the History of Medicine and Modern Science and organized by my friend and colleague, Lisa Haushofer, a PhD candidate in History of Science at Harvard.
I live tweeted during the event and have curated the talk’s main points below. Learn more about Gyorgy Scrinis and Nutritionism here.
Top Image Credit: Emily Contois, 2016
Excited to be at @Harvard today for a seminar with @GyorgyScrinis organized by @LisaHaushofer & #histmed & modern sciences working groups.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
Getting going with @GyorgyScrinis' talk! pic.twitter.com/wPS9x80iSs
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@LisaHaushofer introducing today's speaker @GyorgyScrinis, who will speak on the corporate 'big food' industry and nutritionism. pic.twitter.com/14L27yJXFJ
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis on industry's efforts to make "healthier" products & maintain legitimacy: reformulation, fortification & functionalization.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: Reformulation reduces 'bad' nutrients to minimize harmfulness of processed foods.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: Fortification adds basic nutrients to address micronutrient deficiencies. Different with @vitaminwater for example.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: Functionalization adds health-enhancing nutrients and ingredients to optimize nutrition.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis explores how the food industry has appropriated nutritionism and its negative effects for consumers and health.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis applies a levels framework (nutrient, food, dietary pattern) to understand relationships with nature, food & the body.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: Reductive nutrient interpretations: decontextualization, simplification, exaggeration, determinism, myth of precision.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: nutritional reductionism shapes how consumers understand food quality and how industry co-opts that framework.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: Margarine versus butter is a demonstrative case study for understanding how nutritionism operates.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: In case of margarine/butter, we learned wrong lesson. Trans fats became 'bad' fat instead of focus on processing technique.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis proposes a "food quality paradigm" rather than a nutricentric focus.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: "Adding/subtracting single nutrients doesn't lead to healthy food."
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis argues corporate food has captured the calorie & ideas that calories count, are all the same, just focus on balance.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis summarizes the eras/paradigms of nutritionism (quantifying, good/bad, functional) – old strategies taking new forms today.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis examines limits of product reformulation: Meaningful change? Tasty? Affordable? 'Bad' ingredients sub in for different bad?
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: Should focus on types of processing that lead to hyper-palatability and rapid consumption rather than on nutrients.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis: Ideological function of product reformulation is legitimating consumption of approved foods. So hard to change diets overall
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis Fortification is a nutritional techno-fix for hidden hunger and micronutrient deficiencies. Govt-industry partnerships.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis on how industry has embraced the functionalization of food, 1990/2000 trend. pic.twitter.com/e6IrRQrFDm
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis shows how processed food companies adopt nutritionism for a nutritional halo to legitimize their products and sales growth.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis proposes food policy that focus on food processing quality and integrating nutricentric data.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis' policy recs: regulate food composition by processing, no health claims & global policies for transnational companies.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis' Food Quality Paradigm as an alternate approach to defining food quality and setting policy: pic.twitter.com/FHyA904b2n
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
Great question from @Cevasco_Carla: https://t.co/KZnR1PM5c7
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
@GyorgyScrinis on the problematics of "perfect nutritional foods" – an issue from Plumpy'Nut to Soylent.
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 7, 2016
A gorgeous and delicious dinner with @GyorgyScrinis & family, @merrycorkywhite @LisaHaushofer @hollowearths & Steven Shapin! pic.twitter.com/6MKDaXwUk7
— Emily Contois (@EmilyContois) December 8, 2016
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Emily Contois 