Marketing at its brightest – a food and drink special

A few weeks ago, my grocery delivery included in it a bottle of still water: a sample of a new(ish) product to try to induce me to buy more.

In this case, it was 850ml of ‘Glacéau Smart Water’, which proclaims itself to be: “vapour distilled water with added electrolytes”. “Vapour distilled” should be hyphenated, as it’s a compound adjective, but I’ll stop the grammar pedantry there (possibly).

It claims that it’s “smart because it’s made that way”. And just how is it “made?” you might ask. I mean, it’s Adam’s ale, for goodness sake.

Well, there’s no need to fret for long, as the bottle has a lengthy explanation.

“inspired by clouds

“clean, crisp taste [the absence of capital letters is their idea, not mine]

“sometimes the answer is right under your nose, and other times it’s floating above your head... in our case, it was the humble cloud that got us thinking.

“inspired by the water cycle, we vapour distil our spring water and then add electrolytes to deliver a distinctive, clean, crisp taste.

“smart because it’s made that way.”

The ingredients list – yes, this is a bottle of water, but there are ingredients – reads as follows: “spring water, electrolytes, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, potassium bicarbonate.”

It’s “Made in GB” and “bottled in Northumberland” – in spite of that “Glacéau” bit trying to give it a spot of Frenchified sophistication.

And reading down through the small print, “Glacéau smartwater is a trademark of Energy Brands Inc”. If you want to get in touch with them, you can write to “Coca-Cola Enterprises Ltd, Uxbridge UB8 1EZ”.

So, how does it taste? Okay: it’s no better or worse than any other bottled water. And no better than the water that is ‘made’ by the filter jug I keep in the fridge.

At 80p for 850ml from the supermarket in question (or 56.8p if you buy a crate of 12 600ml bottles), that doesn’t sound too bad, until you realise that Volvic still mineral water is 60p for 1.5 litres, Evian can be had for 84p for 2 litres and Highland Spring for 33.3p a litre; Buxton Spring Water is available at 60p for a 1.5 litre bottle, Brecon Carreg at 30.6p per litre and the company’s basic brand for as little as 18.8p a litre.

‘Smart water my arse,’ as Jim Royle might put it: ‘smart’ only for global sugar merchants Coca-Cola, who will be laughing all the way to the bank when the gullible buy this new piece of hip marketing – because that’s what they’re buying.

This is water for people who are ‘smart’ enough to recognise the word ‘electrolytes’ from drinks marketed for those doing sport, and who will assume that they’re essential for health and, well, they probably need to ingest some more. They might be put off by buying something from Coca-Cola, which perhaps explains why that global icon doesn’t make more of its name on the bottle.

It’s the same way that much else is marketed these days – not least if it’s to do with health. Some of the claims made for ‘detox’ products are, frankly, every bit as laughable as the description of this ‘smart’ water, but it doesn’t make supposedly-intelligent individuals hand over their hard earned in search of some sort of health nirvana.

There are plenty of products out there that are marketed at people who are trying to be healthy, which prey on that desire and an element of ignorance about health, together with the results of our general lack of a food culture.

Watching TV over the weekend, I was reminded of an advert that had previously earned my attention.

It’s for Bertolli spread.

“Farmers tried many ways to combine olive oil with rich, creamy butter, until they discovered new Bertolli with butter: a delicious blend with butter and olive oil, so tasty they fell in love with it,” claims an Italian-accented voice, over pictures of a happy, rustic Italian couple enjoying bread heaped with the spread in question, after he patently fails to get his cow to understand what an olive is.

“New Bertolli with butter: a delicious blend with butter and olive oil.”

I have previously asked Bertolli brand owner Unilever, via Twitter, for evidence of the claim that at least two farmers (since the plural is used) had tried to blend olive oil and butter before Unilever managed it, but I have never had any response.

But then, why would anyone try that?

The ordinary olive oil I buy (the one I use for cooking) is Spanish, with the following ingredient list: “refined olive oil, virgin olive oil”.

My butter has one ingredient: “butter”.

Ordinary Bertolli spread has the following ingredients: “Vegetable Oils in varying proportions (38%) (Rapeseed, Palm, Sunflower), Water, Olive Oil (21%), Sweet Whey Powder (Milk), Buttermilk, Salt (1.1%), Emulsifier (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Thickener (Sodium Alginate), Citric Acid, Natural Flavouring, Vitamins A and D, Colour (Carotenes)”.

Bertolli Light is made up thus: “Water, Vegetable Oils in varying proportions (22%) (Rapeseed, Palm, Sunflower), Olive Oil (16%), Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Buttermilk, Emulsifiers (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Sunflower Lecithin), Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Citric Acid, Natural Flavouring, Vitamins A and D, Colour (Carotenes)”.

Is it any wonder those stupid Italian farmers couldn’t come up with the way to combine butter and olive oil? They forgot to think of the modified corn starch or the sodium alginate. Doh!

But hands up – why would anyone want to spread that on their toast and why would anyone think it healthier than olive oil or butter?

Unilever, of course, has come up with such a product (along with its Flora range) in order to profit from the health advice that fat is bad for you – advice that is increasingly being shown to have been bad itself.

But while that’s one thing – and it’s the way in which big food gets away with marketing yogurt stuffed with sugar, by labeling it ‘low fat’, which is viewed as a synonym for ‘healthy’ – it’s another to wonder how companies are allowed to come up with such fantastical claims as this about farmers trying to blend olive oil and butter.

The marketing for that ‘smart’ water is actually quite clever: it makes no claims about any particular health benefits, including for consumption of its added electrolytes; it doesn’t say that it’s the best taste around or anything similar.

It relies entirely on a certain gullibility.

But then, Coca-Cola has been bitten before, when it emerged after the 2004 launch of its “pure” Dasani bottled water, that what punters were getting for their money was simply tap water that had been filtered three times, using “reverse osmosis”, and with ozone injected to keep it sterile.

Bertolli, on the other hand, is marketed partly via a fantastical claim for which no evidence is given, and on the back of an increasingly discredited belief that the saturated fat of butter is inherently unhealthy.

Its claims of contributing to “a healthy lifestyle” and its entire linking to a simpler, Mediterranean lifestyle, are what give it its power.

So there you have it: two sorts of marketing: two sorts of twaddle.

A little pot of, err, sugar

Yesterday afternoon, my hopes were raised of a pleasant mouthful or two of free fodder by a notice in the office tea room saying that there were yogurts in the fridge and anyone could take one.

When I looked, they were gooseberry flavoured – hmmm, gooseberry.

But, my Homer Simpson moment over, I decided – being me – to risk looking a gift horse in the mouth and check the ingredients.

Sure enough, these “low fat” yogurts had a lengthy ingredient list – lengthy for a yogurt with fruit, anyway.

So, what does a Tesco low fat gooseberry yogurt contain?

The following is exactly as listed:

Yogurt (milk) 75%, Gooseberry 8%, Sugar, Glucose-fructose syrup, Gooseberry juice from concentrate (4%) modified maize starch, flavouring, Thickener (pectin), Nettle concentrate, Spinach concentrate, Curcuma concentrate

The last one is related to the spice turmeric.

In other words, as well as the natural sugars occurring in milk and the fruit, it had added sugar, added glucose-fructose syrup and added fruit juice – which, in concentrating fruit, increases the sugar content.

Y’know, just in case you want to train your sweet tooth.

Doubtless the spinach is there for colour, as may well be the case for the nettle too. Thickener is presumably required because the yogurt is left so insipidly thin after the fat is stripped out.

Heaven alone know why the addition of an extra, and somewhat mysterious, “flavouring” is required – doesn’t the gooseberry taste of anything? Or the fruit juice? And that’s without mentioning the nettle and spinach which presumably make some contribution to the overall taste.

And there’s enough sugar in a single, small pot to keep Willy Wonka happy. Of a 125g portion, 17.4% sugars, which is apparently 19% of your daily recommended allowance. In a tiny pot.

On the other hand, that same small pot has just 2.4g of fat – which is 3% of your RDA.

So remind me – this, by virtue of being “low fat”, is a healthy product, right?

Yogurt – healthy.

Fruit – healthy.

Low fat – healthy.

It’s that easy, although this is a perfect illustration of why people are confused.

And it should go without saying that Tesco is hardly the only company marketing in this way – it's a widespread issue.

On the other hand: take some fruit – rhubarb’s in season at this time of year – and cook it down gently with a little sugar and a small amount of water.

Decant into a sterilised container and allow to cool. Pop it in the fridge.

Take some plain, organic, full-fat yogurt with no additives.

Spoon some into a bowl. Add some of your fruit compote.

Consume with pleasure.

Oh, and I declined the offer.

Pill-pop nation

They're not sweeties

One of the big news stories last week featured reports of a study by Imperial College, London, showing that statins have almost no side-effects.

It came hot on the heels of a report from NICE – the National Institute for Health and Excellence, which among other things, provides guidelines on medical treatments in the UK – announcing that, in order to reduce death from heart disease further, the threshold for prescribing statins should be lowered from a 20% risk over 10 years to a 10% risk over the same time.

Now: a disclaimer. I am not now nor ever have been a scientist or medical expert. So what follows are merely the personal conclusions of someone who might be judged to fall within the latest category that NICE is talking of.

And after the disclaimer, a statement.

I have never had a cholesterol test (I haven’t been near a doctor in years) and, on the basis of what I have read, I do not believe that cholesterol is the big problem or that high cholesterol is the cause of the UK’s rates of heart disease – and I would not willingly take statins myself.

Cholesterol is a vital building block in the body. Evidence suggests it is actually dangerous to drive it down – especially after the age of 50.

Mind most doctors have big doubts about the latest NICE announcements. According to other research by Pulse, the GPs’ magazine, of 511 GPs polled on a variety of issues, 57% opposed the NICE proposal, and 55% would not take a statin or prescribe one for a family member based on the new NICE-proposed lower threshold.

What we seem to be seeing is what Dr Phil Hammond – GP and comedian (and do see him if you get the chance: he’s very good) – has described as the “medicalisation” of society.

Statins have made vast profits for Big Pharma over the years – due to patents and stuff running out, those have reduced of late, so the NICE advice must be, err, nice for these same corporates.

However, it’s worth noting that eight out of the 12 members of the NICE panel that recommended the change have declared ties to the manufacturers, including Pfizer and AstraZeneca.

On only a very slightly different note, a quick glance at thelist of the NHS website’s partners-in-public-health list – (hat tip to Zoë Harcombe o Zoë Harcombe) – gives an indicator of just how much the country’s health has become utterly tied in with corporate interests and, therefore, with the search for profits.

As I explained three years ago, the current government decided to involve more Big Food representatives in making public health policy – and one of the earliest examples of this sawgovernment health ‘advice’ effectively providing free advertising for branded, processed foods.

It’s not difficult to begin to see where problems lie – or where they can be seen or suspected.

Last week’s research from Imperial College was a meta-analysis: in other words, a meticulous survey of previous surveys – in this case, 29 different studies.

But while the meta-analysis itself had no corporate backers, who knows who backed all those other studies?

Not only do we know that research is often produced that has been financially supported by the industry, but it’s also known that Big Pharma is most secretive with trial data – it doesn’t like sharing it with anyone, even in the medical profession – and there are plenty of people around who will assert that the same companies skew trials to start with by using ‘pre-trial trials’ to weed out anyone who obviously shows signs of side effects.

So the ordinary GP has little chance themselves of knowing all the details of any drug – they have to rely on the companies who sell them, just as we have to rely on our doctors.

The thing with statins, though, is that there is no substantial evidence for the big claim that levels of cholesterol cause heart disease.

That myth came into being because of the American researcher, Ancel Keyes.

After WWII, heart disease among men in the US reached epidemic proportions.

Keyes thought he knew why – that a diet rich in saturated fat caused high cholesterol caused heart disease – and he set out to prove it.

After a small study in the US, using men only, he looked further abroad and eventually produced what has become known as the Seven Countries Study, which bore out his great theory.

The trouble is, Keyes didn’t study seven countries. He studied 22 – and ditched most of the findings because they did not tally with what he wanted to find.

This is not a natural product

It ignores the French ‘Paradox’ – only a paradox if you believe Keyes – that sees the French eat more dairy produce than anyone else on Earth, never mind all that foie gras and duck confit, and yet still have far lower rates of heart disease than exist in the UK or US where the low-fat mantra has been so willingly churned out and gobbled up.

Yet Keyes’s work became the foundation for the health and diet advice of the last 40 years: cut out fat and fill up with starchy carbs.

It’s almost certainly been a contributory factor in the rise of obesity, but on a positive note, it’s provided Big Food with wonderful opportunities for creating and marketing as healthy, artificial fats and fat substitutes.

We now have a position where the British Heart Foundation has links not just with the NHS – see that previous link – but also directly with Unilever, which produced Flora.

And Flora is now able to be marketed as ‘heart healthy’ – watch out for the link between the foundation and the product in advertising. Unilever is also on that list of NHS ‘partners’.

In recent months, an increasingly desperate-sounding British Heart Foundation has taken to making statements on health stories that have the ring of a siege mentality about them.

When Sweden become the first country in the West to ditch the low fat diet advice last October, the foundation was sticking its fingers in its ears and claiming that low fat was still best.

With each new piece of research that is slowly rehabilitating natural saturated fats, it does the same.

The cynic might speculate on how, were it to do otherwise, that relationship with Unilever could become strained.

An increasing number of doctors are voicing concerns about medicalisation, just as increasing numbers of doctors are also stepping away from the diet mantras of the last four decades.

We’re starting to see the issue of sugar being raised much more, in terms of the serious damage that high consumption can do.

And it’s worth noting that, in the case of sugar, much of it is hidden.

I was in M&S a few weeks ago, looking for a yogurt for breakfast. I couldn’t find one that didn’t have sugar in it – not least the ones that are sold on the basis that they are ‘low fat’; healthy, in other words.

This IS a natural product – and it will not harm you

And then there’s high-fructose corn syrup that manufacturers have taken to shoving into all manner of processed foods to make them more palatable and to make the consumer buy them again and again.

Again, this is not obviously sweet foods we’re talking about. High-fructose corn syrup is used in breads, cereals, breakfast bars, yogurts again and soups.

Who thinks of sugar in soup or in bread? Cereals have been sold to the public for decades as a healthy breakfast, and breakfast bars come into the same category.

This is what hidden sugars means.

As an increasing number of people raise the issue of these hidden sugars, and as an increasing number of comparisons are made between the attitude of Big Food and that of Big Tobacco, the industry is fighting back.

Those links with the likes of the NHS and the British Heart Foundation should make us skeptical of any defences of what has become the status quo on health and diet advice.

Just as those links between NICE members and Big Pharma, and between Big Pharma and disease, should make us equally skeptical.

What is needed is far greater transparency in all these cases – and far better regulation, properly enforced.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with profits. But when the search for profits trumps people, then it’s a sign that something is very wrong.

And what is also needed is an honest and thorough approach to dealing with the problems caused by a national approach to food that includes using takeaways and ping food to the extent that the UK does, not taking time to eat properly, constant snacking, the demise of cooking skills, a prevailing attitude of food as fuel, vast amounts of media space given over to faddy diets, new homes built without proper kitchens etc etc – and not just a rather lame sense of correcting it all my medicalising the populace.

That won’t be as easy as sticking fingers in ears and endlessly intoning the low-fat mantra, irrespective of the body of evidence against it, but it would be a damned sight more effective than the equivalent of the three little pigs inviting the wolf to join them for dinner.

Further reading:

The Great Cholesterol Con by Dr Malcolm Kendrick

Although now dead the Cholesterolosaurus will march on by Dr Malcolm Kenderick

Bad Pharma by Dr Ben Goldacre

Bad Food Britain by Joanna Blythman

Worth following on Twitter:

@KailashChandOBE

@JoannaBlythman

@bengoldacre

@DrAseemMalhotra

@zoeharcombe

@drbriffa

The above-mentioned may not agree with all I have written here, but are all very much worth reading and following on the matter raised in this post.

Cereal offenders

A toothless tiger? Is that all the sugar?

However, over the weekend, I admit to actually being shocked to the point of total gobsmackedness.

No, not by the news that the Labour Party is considering the issue of a cap on sugar in breakfast cereals, but the mere fact that, on the basis that the suggested cap is 30%, it seems that some cereals currently consist of more than 30% sugar.

Now I’m well aware that such products do include sugar – no matter how much they're marketed as a healthy product – but to contain more that 30% sugar?

Labour, being terrified of the corporate lobby, is only floating the idea of a cap. And it seems that cereals that are particularly targeted at children are the man concern.

Mind, you can guarantee that this soon became all about whether the party would ban Tony the Tiger and the grrrrrrrrrreat start to the day that is a bowl of Frosties.

Say you’re a dedicated enough shopper that you check labels before putting a product in your basket. Now okay, you’ll know that Frosties and many other cereals have sugar in them.

You’ll possibly also be aware that, ingredients are listed in order of quantity, so if it lists sugar second, then that’s because it’s the second biggest ingredient.

But it’s less likely that you’ll spot, further down the list, high fructose corn syrup – or whatever other term it’s listed as – and yet many cereals do include this.

Even a cereal such as Bran Flakes has sugar as the third ingredient – plus salt. And honey. And this is a cereal that, to read the blurb, you would believe was a gift to better health.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not suggesting anyone cut out sugar altogether. But one aspect of the overall problem is hidden sugar and disingenuous marketing in products that are sold on the basis of ‘healthiness’.

You might buy a pizza, opting for what you think is a pretty healthy topping, but some companies use high fructose corn syrup to glaze the base. Is that somewhere that people really expect to find sugar? I doubt it, personally.

“Enjoy regularly within a healthy diet and lifestyle” adds the blurb for Müller’s low-fat, fruity yogurts. Yet have a guess what the third ingredient is- yup: sugar.

So why does the food industry behave like this?

Well, it’s obvious: money.

Even though there is an increasing understanding of the problems caused by the hidden sugars in processed foods, most people still believe that the really big demon is fat – and big food is more than happy to play along with that.

The trouble is, when you strip all the fat out of something, you need then to find a way of making it palatable. That’s what they have to do with margarine – as well as adding artificial colour, since removing the fat renders the product grey. And nobody is going to want to spread a grey substance on their toast, no matter how healthy its manufacturers claim it is.

Labour’s ideas are merely tinkering around the edges. The problem in this situation is that big food is a hugely powerful lobby and can get away with a great deal that many people would view as downright immoral. And I never use that word lightly.

There are commentators who believe that the entire added sugar approach is going to come down on the head of manufacturers very soon – in much the same way that tobacco companies have been hit.

Let's face it – it's a very long time since anyone was claiming that tobacco was good for you – yet companies are still claiming that products that contain sugar are specifically healthy, as we've seen.

Ancel Keyes and the whole ‘fat-is-evil’ farce have a great deal to answer for.

But more than 30% sugar in breakfast cereals for children? Grrrrrrrr.

A couple of unrepeatable (hopefully) food experiences

It’s a long, long time since I visited the Sainsbury’s at Angel, Islington. I’ve nipped into the little one at Euston Station occasionally to grab something before a train journey, or the one at Manchester Piccadilly for the same thing in reverse, but that’s it.

However, after making a meat and potato pie on Sunday – the perfect welcome for the autumn’s first stay-in-and-curl-up-on-the-sofa-with-the-cats day – I was left with some spare filling and plenty of pastry.

It was a question of finding the most convenient place in which to buy a little extra beef mince to make up enough filling for a second pie.

On a Monday, Henry the Broadway Market butcher is closed, so I nipped to the Angel Sainsbury’s on Monday after work, where I remembered they have a little ‘butcher’s’ counter.

I found myself wondering how on earth I’d ever managed to keep my sanity when having to shop regularly in such places. And how anyone else manages to do it now.

As I was about to enter, a mother was having to fight off a screaming child, dressed in primary school uniform, who wanted what appeared to be a bright cornflower blue lollipop that his mother was trying to keep just out of reach.

Inside, I was met by cacophony combined with chilled air from the cool cabinets.

Near the tobacco check out were shelves of prepacked sandwiches, crisps, magazines and newspapers.

And then, taking the obvious route, fruit and veg, followed by a vast aisle of what seemed to be largely ready meals and ready meal components.

The ‘butcher’s’ counter was where I remembered it. It had little variety and seemed to be exclusively prime cuts. If Sainsbury’s read this, the young man who served me was very charming and entirely efficient.

The place was rammed. I needed milk and razor blades (for The Other Half, not my wrists) and spent some time hunting the latter down.

The far wall of the store, for its entire length, now houses confectionary. To be scrupulously fair, that means that this Sainsbury’s at least doesn’t do the trick of putting the sweets next to the tills.

Then I noticed what looked like entire aisles of Mr Kipling’s exceedingly good cakes (full of things you wouldn't bake with at home – who the hell would put vegetable oil in an apple pie?). And aisles of crisps and snacks, of course. And fizzy drinks.

The sheer amount of which make the fruit and veg look insignificant by comparison.

There were schoolchildren, picking up snack fodder and adults picking up vast multipacks of crisps for their children. The place was rammed. The queues were tedious.

I should point out here that Islington is not just a posh area – it also has some very poor people. The customers in the shop were a reflection of the area’s mix.

It could be said that one of the problems of thing and reading about food seriously is that you start to see certain things.

In the Joanna Blythman book that I have just finished, she talks of the vast numbers of Britons who eat on the hoof. In the couple of days since finishing that, I have been surprised at just how much I’ve noticed this.

And it seems to defy most social categories. I suspect it hasn’t only occurred this week.

The subsequent second bite of the meat and potato pie was welcome: no junk; the only ingredients that were not homemade from scratch were the HP sauce, Worcester sauce – and the ketchup (organic from Daylesford).

But the days other negative food experience had occurred earlier in the day, when there was a slice or two of cake available in the office – and I took advantage.

It was Victoria sponge – but after a couple of bites, it went in the bin. The reason? Quite simply that it tasted as though it was at least 50% sugar.

Even the layer of buttercream filling seemed to include so much sugar that the texture was granular.

So there you have it: two food experiences I will be trying to avoid repeating any time soon.