Cans of Campbell's soup are displayed along a grocery store's shelves in New York City.Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Growing up, Campbell’s soup was a dietary staple in my home.
My mother would often have a bowl of chicken noodle and a grilled cheese sandwich waiting for me for lunch when I came home from school.
Not surprisingly, the same soup found a home in our pantry when it was time to raise a family of our own. My wife and I loved it and so did our kids. Doubtlessly, this same story has played out across North America, for generations.
Imagine my surprise, then, when a story broke recently about a Campbell’s executive being caught on tape castigating his company’s products, calling it “shit” food for “poor people.” He said the chicken in Campbell’s products isn’t real, but bio-engineered meat made from a 3D printer.
Gulp.
Needless to say, the soup hit the fan and the executive was fired, with the company denying it all and sticking up for its product line, which includes sauces, pasta and snacks like Goldfish crackers.
I’m sure the story had many people checking the ingredients label on Campbell’s products more closely. I did, anyway. Nothing on the tin of mushroom soup I grabbed from the cupboard jumped out at me: Vegetable oil? Buttermilk powder? Soy protein concentrate? Was any of that terrible?
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The story did contribute to a broader discussion my wife and I have been having about adopting a healthier diet. We already eat relatively well – fish, vegetables, not too much red meat – still, it’s hard not to get caught up in the rampaging debate about the unhealthy nature of the North American diet.
It’s being blamed for any number of concerning health conditions, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The biggest culprit is ultraprocessed food (UPF), which involves chemical modifications and industrial methods designed to extend shelf life and maximize profits. Often these techniques also maximize calories.
Health officials have been sounding the alarm about this for some time now. Even Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who heads the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has declared UPFs a scourge. He’s declared ingredients such as artificial dyes to be poison – one being fed to American children. According to some estimates, UPFs make up 73 per cent of the U.S. food supply, and 70 per cent of children’s daily caloric intake.
Mr. Kennedy has vowed to get UPFs out of schools and is urging states to ban the use of food stamps to buy sugary sodas. An entire Make American Healthy Again (MAHA) movement has sprung up around his efforts.
Elsewhere, the city of San Francisco recently filed a lawsuit against food manufacturers over UPFs, arguing that American cities are burdened with the costs of treating diseases that stem from the companies’ products, such as Slim Jim meat sticks and Cool Ranch Doritos.
The fact is, it’s not easy avoiding food that is bad for you. Order a salad for lunch? The dressing may contain harmful preservatives. That granola parfait may look like a healthy option, but could have artificial sweeteners. Something that bills itself as low-calorie likely includes artificial trans fats.
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But there’s also another huge impediment to eating healthy – costs.
Everyone talks about adopting a Mediterranean diet, but that’s easier said than done. Eating fresh fruits and vegetables every day is just not financially feasible for millions of Canadians. The pandemic put this goal out of reach for many, and costs have remained prohibitively high since. Statistics Canada says grocery costs have outpaced inflation across the country for nine straight months.
While the nutrition crisis in the U.S. is getting a lot of attention, it exists in Canada, too. We are eating the same chips and drinking the same pop. Kids are demanding the same cereals that I loved growing up. One of my favourites was Apple Jacks. I never thought twice about what I was eating as I consumed bowl after bowl.
Only now have I discovered it contains hydrogenated coconut, modified food starch and degerminated yellow corn flour among other things that are undoubtedly awful for you. But it’s still flying off the shelves because kids love it, and busy, tired parents don’t have the energy to try and convince their children to love Shreddies instead.
It’s going to take a brave, momentous effort to push back against a food industry making billions selling us food that isn’t good for us. It should start, in this country at least, with a massive education campaign about the risks involved.
And then we need to find a way to make healthy food more economically accessible to the masses. Until we do, people will continue filling their shopping carts with items that cost less, but could ultimately shorten their lives.