This recent piece in the Irish Times is excellent.
“Have you seen the bread aisle in the supermarket recently? Count how many bread brands have branched into lines of pancakes, brioches and flapjacks. Look at how every cereal manufacturer now has product extensions in breakfast bars, granolas and sweet spreads. Breads and cereals are biscuitised, dairy is dessertised, vegetables are crispified..”
Superb writing highlighting the real harm posed by the ultraprocessed food market in Ireland.
Good journalism – especially health and science journalism – isn’t as common as it should be. This piece excels because it was written by experts, and explores the market forces and forward solutions rather than merely lamenting yet again how poor diets are factor in our growing health crisis. It explores marketing and production – without blaming the consumer.
Did you know? Excellent investigative journalism has something of a history in spurring meaningful health reform. In 1906, a journalist named Upton Sinclair went undercover at meat packing plants. What he wanted to do was expose the working and living conditions of immigrant workers in a novel called The Jungle. However, what he revealed about the practices in meat-packing places struck American stomachs, not hearts. They were horrified not by the working conditions but by learning about what went into their hot dogs. It sparked a series of legal food safety reforms.
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