CONSUMER

By AK Anderson

Walking down those interminable checkered aisles, you gaze at each brightly packaged food product. You grab the bag of chips that’s eye-catching and trendy with the promise of “organic and gluten-free goodness!”. You throw it in your cart and continue, forgetting why you were even here in the first place. You grab a few cookies, a prepackaged meal and go on your way.

At home, you warm up the frozen meal in your microwave. You lift the spoon to your mouth. The same, small spoon you use for every dish. This meal is simplicity and ease within a plastic-lined box. Four quick minutes in the microwave and five more to put in your body. Afterward, you feel your stomach uncomfortably gurgle and bulge against your pants. Why do you feel so bad? After all, the food was made for you, perfectly crafted for you! Above all, you and your taste buds savored it.

When did we allow our nutrition to be in the hands of a company without regard for our health? To this company, you are a number. One among thousands who purchase and eat their products. You are a consumer of their “high quality” product and nothing more.

Grocery stores are designed to predict exactly where you will walk and to place exciting, inviting foods in your path. They are also mapped so you are forced to peruse their aisles over and over, picking up food that you never intended to buy. The aisles are purposely designed to be narrow enough to where you cannot easily turn your cart around, forcing you to walk it’s long, full length.

We’re trained to think we have a choice when shopping, but the reality is we can only choose what’s already been provided to us. There’s careful calculation in placing expensive, modified food at eye level for easy grabbing, while placing cheaper food at the top of the aisles, out of sight. For these higher–priced foods, the packaging is often emotionallyprovoking and eye-grabbing, forcing you to make an aesthetic choice rather than a rational one. To ensure you can buy all of these foods, they give you extra–large shopping carts. This makes you more inclined to fill up your cart with their products. How often have you gone to the grocery store planning for one or two items, but you leave with a basket full?

Food was once a vitamin and mineralrich form of energy for our bodies. Real, whole foods continue to become a smaller part of our culture and diet. Since 2007, there has been a steady decline in the number of farmers in the United States. To combat this, the U.S. has decided to genetically modify food while increasing the amount of processed foods. To ensure you consume these products, ingredient names that are hardly recognizable are placed on the back of packages. For example, did you know there are 61 different words for sugar? Have you heard of dextrose, fructose, galactose, glucose, lactose, maltose, sucrose, beet sugar, agave nectar, or brown rice syrup? They all mean the same thing to our bodies. A simple carbohydrate that is broken down and processed in the same way.

While gut health has become a trendy word for influencers to throw around, it does have scientific validity. 95% of your serotonin receptors are within the lining of your intestines. In the study Transferring the blues: Depressionassociated gut microbiota induces neurobehavioural changes in the rat, we learn that the gut microbiome has a direct effect on our mental health. By taking the gut microbiota of depressed rats and putting it into healthy rats, the researchers found that the once-healthy rats showed symptoms of depression (Kelly, et al). For humans, this shows how depression can manifest due to an imbalance in your gut microbiota heavily influenced by your diet. With studies like this, we can link the mental health crisis to an overconsumption of foods that are not easily absorbed by our bodies nor are nutrient dense.

We deserve the right to know what we put into our bodies. Our gut is the center of our being and it is the system that uptakes and controls the nutrients and minerals that fuel our existence. The ability to walk, read a book, drive your car, and laugh with a friend are all functions that are fueled by what you put into your body.

The United States has an epidemic of health. It is an issue we can never avoid. Food is essential for life, however what we’re provided with in stores doesn’t constitute healthy living. Our well-meaning trust in companies and the government is thrown aside; our submission is a constant commodity. Food has become a genetically modified form of power that companies have over us.

Food was our shared humanity, but we’ve only become further seperated from it’s source. Our belief that we have a choice when shopping is an illusion that everyone’s spoonfed. Although we believe we have quality access to sustenance, the grocery store only offers lifeless aisles.

References Kelly JR;Borre Y;O’ Brien C;Patterson E;El Aidy S;Deane J;Kennedy PJ;Beers S;Scott K;Moloney G;Hoban AE;Scott L;Fitzgerald P;Ross P;Stanton C;Clarke G;Cryan JF;Dinan TG; (2016, July 25). Transferring the blues: Depression-associated gut microbiota induces neurobehavioural changes in the rat. Journal of psychiatric research. Retrieved March 30, 2022, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm. nih.gov/27491067/