Food Politics, Food Marketing Activities, and Nutrition Myths with Journalist and Registered Dietitian Andy Bellatti MS, RD

Food Pol­i­tics, Food Mar­ket­ing Activ­i­ties, and Nutri­tion Myths

It takes a lot to gain my respect in nutrition.

The fact is, there’s a lot of “noise” out there in the world of “healthy food”.

Quite frankly, I find that con­sumers like you are angry, frus­trated, and con­fused with the pol­i­tics of food.

As two out of every three of us are over­weight or obese, and one out of every three chil­dren born after the year 2000 are expected to have type II dia­betes later in life, nutri­tion is becom­ing more impor­tant to our health sys­tem than ever before.

To help us nav­i­gate the con­fus­ing world of food mar­ket­ing, I wanted to inter­view Andy Bel­l­latti, a Reg­is­tered Dietit­ian who really dif­fer­en­ti­ated him­self to me by cut­ting through the noise of the food indus­try and giv­ing some very use­ful and prac­ti­cal nutri­tion advice.

Bellatti’s blog, Small Bites, really stood out from the pack, espe­cially when it comes to pulling the rug from beneath myths in food mar­ket­ing and nutri­tion advice.

The Pol­i­tics of Food:

I’m going to do some­thing a lit­tle dif­fer­ent from other blogs and skip the for­mal intro­duc­tion at first so I can get right to my first question:

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

Andy, What do you think is the num­ber one prob­lem with dietary advice today?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD:

A lot of of dietary advice that passes off as “objec­tive sci­ence” is tainted by food indus­try politics.

The idol­iza­tion the United States has with dairy is one example.

The milk indus­try has lob­bied hard and spent mil­lions to (suc­cess­fully) con­vince the Amer­i­can pub­lic that milk is a must-have for healthy bones. They con­ve­niently do not men­tion that many nutri­ents cru­cial for bone health are not found in milk, that nations with the high­est intakes of dairy also have the high­est rates of osteo­poro­sis, and that there are many other, health­ier sources of calcium.

Alas, there is no Dark Leafy Greens Coun­cil that can com­pete with the Dairy Council’s adver­tis­ing bud­get or polit­i­cal strength.

The word­ing of main­stream dietary advice has also increas­ingly got­ten weak. “Eat more fruits and veg­eta­bles” is fine advice, but it would be bet­ter if we also said “eat less meat.” This also goes back to pol­i­tics. The meat indus­try has a lot of pull in Wash­ing­ton DC, and our crop sub­si­dies greatly favor that indus­try (most cows sub­sist on corn). Don’t expect the gov­ern­ment to tell its cit­i­zens to eat less meat any time soon.

I am aware that there are vary­ing degrees of beef (corn-fed, Con­cen­trated Ani­mal Feed­ing Oper­a­tion [CAFO] beef is dif­fer­ent, nutri­tion­ally and envi­ron­men­tally, from organic and grass-fed beef), but every­one would ben­e­fit from reduc­ing their total intake.  I don’t con­sider eat­ing three pounds of organic, grass-fed beef a week instead of three pounds of con­ven­tional corn-fed beef a solu­tion, not when the aver­age Amer­i­can only man­ages to eat half of the daily amount of rec­om­mended fiber.

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

I def­i­nitely agree that food pol­i­tics hijacks our country’s decision-making when it comes to the avail­abil­ity and afford­abil­ity of healthy food. I feel that our coun­try has a long way to go, par­tic­u­larly with adver­tis­ing food to children.

On a pos­i­tive note, I do feel that social media has com­pletely changed how news in food pol­i­tics is dis­trib­uted and because of the per­sonal nature of blogs and arti­cle shar­ing, I think that big food and agri­cul­tural indus­tries are find­ing it increas­ingly harder to main­tain author­ity and “con­trol” the conversation.

Social media plat­forms like Twit­ter and Face­book have com­pletely lev­eled the play­ing field when it comes to dis­sem­i­nat­ing nutri­tion information.

What role has social media played in your rela­tion­ship with your blog­ging com­mu­nity as well as your nutri­tion clients?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD: 

The major­ity of pri­vate clients I have worked with found me through my blog.  They found the con­tent help­ful, prac­ti­cal, and — this is what I am most proud of — not “dumbed down”.

A lot of the peo­ple I work with are inter­ested in achiev­ing health, not weight loss, so they appre­ci­ate my “whole-foods approach”.

Also, a good por­tion of my clients are also inter­ested in issues of food politics.

Con­sumers don’t just want to know what the food high­est in monoun­sat­u­rated fat is; they also want to learn more about how food is grown and what kinds of food sys­tems and pro­duc­tion mod­els are out there.

It’s easy to tell when some­one is chal­leng­ing you because they are truly inter­ested in exchang­ing ideas as opposed to just being sar­cas­tic and try­ing to get a rise out of you.

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

I have had a sim­i­lar expe­ri­ence with social media and attract roughly 25% of new clients based on my blog arti­cles and social net­works, the rest come from refer­rals and pub­lic lec­tures, dis­cus­sions and work­shops where I am sim­ply shar­ing infor­ma­tion.

Let’s take a step back so that you can tell us a lit­tle about your aca­d­e­mic back­ground. How did you decide to become a Reg­is­tered Dietitian?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD:

In the Spring of 2004, I watched Mor­gan Spurlock’s “Super­Size Me”. I walked out of the the­ater and thought, “I need to study nutri­tion!”. That film bril­liantly show­cased this country’s health cri­sis along with the pol­i­tics and agen­das that cre­ated the per­fect storm, so to speak.

I double-majored in print jour­nal­ism and gen­der & sex­u­al­ity stud­ies at New York Uni­ver­sity. Both of those fields of study trained me to think crit­i­cally, ask tough ques­tions, rec­og­nize mul­ti­ple lay­ers that affect one prob­lem, and look at issues from a mul­ti­tude of angles.

I’m so thank­ful for that back­ground; it basi­cally ingrained an “anti-BS” chip in my brain.

Because of that back­ground, I bring an ‘inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism’ approach to nutri­tion. I’m not afraid to ques­tion the Amer­i­can Dietetic Association’s stance on cer­tain issues, and call out what I think are posi­tions moti­vated by polit­i­cal and finan­cial rea­sons, rather than “science”.

When I see a “Got Milk?” ad, my reac­tion isn’t to say “Oh, wow, I should tell my clients to drink more milk!”, but rather “How did the milk indus­try con­vince mil­lions of Amer­i­cans that it has exclu­sive rights to bone health?”.

I also like to point out con­nec­tions that I believe are cru­cial to dis­sect if the nutri­tion dis­cus­sion is going to go any­where. You hear “obe­sity” talked about relent­lessly, many times as if it is “the prob­lem” to fix.

In real­ity, obe­sity is merely the most vis­i­ble symp­tom of other issues:

• Crop sub­si­dies that make unhealthy foods cheap
• Relent­less mar­ket­ing of unhealthy foods
• Preva­lence of food deserts
• Increas­ingly “obe­so­genic” envi­ron­ments, etc.

I don’t like ‘sur­face dis­cus­sions’. I want to talk food pol­icy, envi­ron­men­tal effects of Con­cen­trated Ani­mal Feed­ing Oper­a­tions (CAFOs), how the food indus­try deceives con­sumers, or the sketchy polit­i­cal deal­ings behind the approval of cer­tain arti­fi­cial sweeteners.

That, to me, is a thou­sand times more inter­est­ing than how to slash twenty calo­ries from a sand­wich by using a fat-free may­on­naise that has more in com­mon with Play­doh than actual food.

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN: 

In your blog, you really give insight into the dirty mar­ket­ing tricks of Big Food and com­pa­nies like Pepsi and Nes­tle, but what are some pos­i­tive trends that you see hap­pen­ing in the food world? Is the per­son read­ing this right now doomed?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD:

The most pos­i­tive trend I’m see­ing is that the issue of food indus­try decep­tion is becom­ing more of a main­stream topic. Many “laypeo­ple” are tired of nutri­tion­ally infe­rior food try­ing to pass itself off as health food.

When Mar­ion Nestle’s Food Pol­i­tics (a book I firmly believe every­one study­ing nutri­tion must read, along with Michele Simon’s Appetite for Profit) came out in 2002, most peo­ple didn’t even know what ‘food pol­i­tics’ meant.

Nowa­days, you not only see the term “Food Pol­i­tics” used fre­quently, but the topic is part of main­stream media; it’s no longer lim­ited to aca­d­e­mic circles.

I’m also see­ing peo­ple becom­ing more con­cerned with eat­ing real, min­i­mally processed food as opposed to low-fat/low-carb/low-calorie ‘prod­ucts’ that look like sci­ence fair rejects.

Another nice trend I’m see­ing – peo­ple tak­ing an inter­est in the sourc­ing of their food. Where does it grow? How is it grown? How are the peo­ple who grow and pick my food treated? How do these grow­ing prac­tices affect the envi­ron­ment? These are all impor­tant questions.

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

Thanks for your insight on the pos­i­tive things going on in the food world. It can be so easy and tempt­ing to focus on the neg­a­tive trends. You would think that this would cre­ate a prime oppor­tu­nity for nutri­tion­ists and well­ness advo­cates to really move to the fore­front of health­care, but this is not nec­es­sar­ily the case, yet.

I think this is another area that you are sim­ply spot on with your blog. Please share with some­one read­ing this blog: How do nutri­tion­ists shoot them­selves in the foot when it comes to gain­ing a seri­ous foothold in healthcare?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD:

I wrote a very lengthy blog post about this a few months ago, but I’ll sum up my feel­ings. I have to tell you, it’s very dis­turb­ing to me when I see nutri­tion pro­fes­sion­als act­ing like defense lawyers for fast food com­pa­nies (and I don’t just mean the Reg­is­tered Dieti­tians employed by Big Food).

Take, for exam­ple, the ‘news’ ear­lier this sum­mer that McDonald’s planned on adding four apple slices to their Happy Meals. In my mind, the fact that a food com­pany makes a tiny change does not mean they should be exempt from crit­i­cism, espe­cially when said change is more PR than change.

With the “new” Happy Meal, a child can still eat chicken nuggets, fries, and choco­late milk as a meal. What is there to “cel­e­brate”? Despite this, some Reg­is­tered Dieti­tians (on Twit­ter and in their blogs) applauded this as “sig­nif­i­cant progress” and con­grat­u­lated McDonald’s for help­ing pro­vide bet­ter choices. I was flabbergasted.

Com­pla­cency is not good, espe­cially from health pro­fes­sion­als. I don’t know why some RDs are afraid to call out the food indus­try and say “Wait a minute, you’re try­ing to pull the wool over our eyes!”. It’s as if, rather than stand­ing up to the play­ground bully, we suck up to it in hopes that one day, maybe, they’ll be nice to us. It really both­ers me.

I would much rather we applaud advo­cates who fight for tight reg­u­la­tions and poli­cies on adver­tis­ing fast food to chil­dren, or who are work­ing on the ground to help get toys out of Happy Meals. Those are much more admirable causes than adding a cou­ple of apple slices to Happy Meals and pat­ting your­self on the back for “car­ing about children’s health.”

Then there are the mean­ing­less, tooth­less state­ments that many in the nutri­tion field like to use, such as “there are no bad foods” and “every­thing in mod­er­a­tion”, both of which are sim­plis­tic plat­i­tudes. There ARE bad foods, and not “every­thing” should be in mod­er­a­tion. Set­ting up a play­ing field where unsweet­ened green tea and soda are talked about in the same way com­pletely misses the point and helps no one.

My oblig­a­tion to peo­ple is to help them eat well. I don’t go for the quick fix or overnight change. But I do unabashedly advo­cate real food. If you want to talk about how to make a 50-calorie dessert with fat-free Whipped cream and Splenda, I’m not your guy. I’m the guy who will tell you: “eat three squares of dark (85%) choco­late every night for heart health”.

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

Your post on how some other nutri­tion­ists are miss­ing the mark is exactly what spurred me to learn more about your work, to trust you, and even­tu­ally seek an inter­view with you. But look­ing deeper in to the issue of trust, What should some­one read­ing this post con­sider when choos­ing a nutri­tion professional?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD:

Look for some­one who thinks crit­i­cally and inde­pen­dently. I would steer clear of some­one who hands you a “healthy eat­ing tip sheet” that has a Frito-Lay logo on it.

I also would steer clear of those who refer to real, health­ful foods like chia seeds, kom­bucha, or sea veg­eta­bles as “hype”. It sad­dens me when some of my col­leagues know very lit­tle about the health ben­e­fits of these foods and, rather than inves­ti­gate them and dis­cover their health­ful prop­er­ties, shrug them off, while in the next breath rec­om­mend­ing choco­late milk and “low-fat” turkey bacon.

Also, look for some­one who has kept up with research. If you are look­ing to improve your blood lipid pro­file and your health pro­fes­sional does not rec­om­mend lim­it­ing added sug­ars (and instead focuses on lim­it­ing all fats), that’s a sign you are deal­ing with some­one who hasn’t been keep­ing up with nutri­tion research.

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

I am sure there are pock­ets of indi­vid­u­als who may take offense to some of your “racier” and “reveal­ing” posts. Have you received any seri­ous crit­i­cism for the work that you post on your blog? How do you respond to your critics?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD:

I have. My approach is a whole-foods, plant-based one. I also often call out Big Food (that is to mean, major cor­po­ra­tions like Gen­eral Mills, Pep­siCo, McDonald’s, and Taco Bell), Big Dairy, and Big Beef as indus­tries that are more about hype and decep­tion than health.

My plant-centric approach does not go over well with a lot of the hard­core Paleos or low-carbers out there, for obvi­ous rea­sons. Another group that doesn’t respond well to my work are Reg­is­tered Dieti­tians who work for the previously-mentioned indus­tries as well as those who are closely affil­i­ated with the Amer­i­can Dietetic Asso­ci­a­tion. It comes with the ter­ri­tory, so it’s by no means surprising.

Alas, social media has allowed me to con­nect with fellow-minded Reg­is­tered Dieti­tians and other nutri­tion pro­fes­sion­als, which has been won­der­ful. It’s also been great to con­nect with doc­tors, lawyers, pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­als, jour­nal­ists, and vegan chefs  who have sim­i­lar inter­ests and ideas. I’m a big fan of multi-disciplinary approaches.

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

So know­ing what you know about the behind-the-scenes mar­ket­ing tac­tics of Big Food, Do you have a process for deter­min­ing if a piece of nutri­tion advice is valuable?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD:

Yes. Always look at who is say­ing it. I’ll never for­get a few years ago, Details mag­a­zine had a short piece on “cur­ing hang­overs”. One dietit­ian was quoted as say­ing Vit­a­min Water was great for that.

What the arti­cle didn’t men­tion (but I knew from being in the field) was that this par­tic­u­lar dietit­ian was employed by Vit­a­min Water. Oops!

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

Besides Small Bites, Do you have any favorite, trust­wor­thy resources that you con­sis­tently visit for nutri­tion news and information?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD:

I love to read thought­ful and crit­i­cal analy­ses. My “Fave Five”, in no par­tic­u­lar order:

• Mar­ion Nestle’s blog (Food Pol­i­tics) for pub­lic health nutri­tion issues
• Michele Simon’s blog (Appetite for Profit) for nutri­tion pol­icy and legal matters
• Dr. Yoni Freedhoff’s blog (Weighty Mat­ters) for issues of food pol­i­tics and indus­try decep­tion in Canada
• Mark Bittman (New York Times) for a lit­tle bit of every­thing related to food
• Tom Philpott (Mother Jones) for agri­cul­tural policy.

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

Those are some great resources that a reader could turn to for long-term health infor­ma­tion, but What are some sim­ple steps that some­one read­ing this blog can take and prac­ti­cally apply to their lives today?

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD:

Move away from processed foods.

The myopic “fats are bad” or “carbs are bad” views miss the point. I always tell peo­ple, “for­get low-fat or low-carb, think low-processed”. When you think “low-processed”, you eat foods that are chock full of nutri­tion and fla­vor, and that truly sati­ate. Avo­ca­dos, almonds, quinoa, oats, and whole fruit are not the foods that should bring up “red flags”.

Alex Rine­hart, MS, DC, CCN:

Andy, thanks so much for tak­ing the time to intro­duce my read­ers to food pol­i­tics. This dis­cus­sion is so impor­tant to the cur­rent state of healthcare. I really admire the work you are doing and I hope that my read­ers take your mes­sage to heart.

Andy Bel­latti, MS, RD is a Seattle-based dietit­ian who works from a whole-foods, plant-centric approach.  He also takes a strong inter­est in food pol­i­tics, nutri­tion pol­icy, and decep­tive mar­ket­ing tac­tics uti­lized by the food indus­try.  He is the cre­ator of the Small Bites blog and can be fol­lowed on Twit­ter (@AndyBellatti).