The Carrot or the Stick?

Welcome to National Nutrition Month. Oh, you didn’t know it is National Nutrition Month? I’m not surprised. Despite the fact that I am a graduate student in nutrition, I didn’t either.  It’s hard to get a handle on all the ‘awareness’ days and months we are subjected to, nonetheless untangle the positive or sinister motivations behindd each. Let’s see: February is National Snack Food Month, June 1st is World Milk Day and National Candy Corn Day is celebrate on October 30th: surely the importance of each is fully understood and appropriately celebrated. At least nutrition is something we can all relate too. We all eat (unfortunately some too little and some too much) and our bodies all interact with the nutrients in our food. No matter how you swallow it, that’s nutrition. It doesn't matter if you are the American Dietetics Association, Sally Fallon, the Institute of Medicine, Julia Child, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans or your advice-giving mom. So, in honor of National Nutrition Month, savor these ponderings on our food landscape.

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Have you slipped your coins into the Baby Carrot Vending Machine yet? Would you? The machines, bright orange with a bold tag line on the side, offer fifty-cent single-serve portions of baby carrots housed in a graphic plastic pouch. Debuting last fall in two Ohio high schools, the vending machines are part of a national marketing campaign sponsored by “A Bunch of Carrot Farmers” to make these vegetables cool. The media campaign, consisting of “extreme” commercials and the “Eat ‘em Like Junk Food” slogan, is part satire and part sincerity. The aesthetics mock the ‘extreme’ marketing tactics of today’s top junk ‘food’ items, yet respectfully recognize the success of these gimmicks in creating high demand for these unhealthy items. So why not hop on the ‘radical’ marketing bandwagon and attempt and make boring baby carrots ultimately hip?

This fancy new vending machine has its pros and cons. In this case, a student who is habituated to using a vending machine for snacks (or possibly even meals!) is now offered a healthier, fresher, nutrient dense, low-cost option: boring old carrots. Of course, healthier, fresher, nutrient dense and low cost are all based on an assumption that the student is otherwise buying a heavily processed food product laden with saturated fat, sodium and sugar from the neighboring vending machine. Further, as anyone interested in economic development for the often-struggling fruit and vegetable growers of America recognizes, this is a great new market for producers to offer their crop to consumers. A second bright point of this concept.

But what would the student do if the carrots weren’t there? Is this healthy vending machine going to educate students about overall nutritious food choices? Will it encourage teenagers to eat healthier food the other twenty-three and a half hours a day when their growing appetites go unsatiated? Can it educate youth to savor full meals consisting of whole foods that meet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans? In reality, this is still a fast food item wrapped in glitzy packaging! Although it may offer a healthy snack on the spot, these bags of carrots may well be teaching kids that the only palatable foods are heavily marketed, spit out of a glowing vending machines and wrapped in branded cellophane. [As if food comes from, ick, the soil.]

A similar conversation occurred last month at the Tufts University Friedman School for Nutrition Science and Policy Weekly Seminar Series featuring Thomas John, the Executive Chef for Au Bon Pain. The chef asserted that people automatically turn away from menu items labeled as “healthy” because they assume they will taste bad. Obviously, we all know healthy food can’t possibly taste good. And, of course, people are often looking to ‘splurge’ if they are eating away from home.

Mr. John explained their proactive nutrition approach to helping people be healthier this way: people choose the foods they know taste good, so we will make the foods people want to eat a little bit healthier. Maybe that means cutting saturated fat out of a sandwich by halving the cheese content, reducing the sodium and fat in favored dressings or reducing the serving size of soup by offering smaller bowls. (These are not examples from Mr. John, but pulled from the top of my head.) But don’t tell your consumers the food item is healthier!

Where does this leave the consumer? Nibbling on a slightly healthier meal because a revenue-driven business wants to make a small socially responsibility step in the field of nutrition? Still thinking that a daily Roast Beef and Brie on a Farmhouse Roll is a good choice? Eating tiny carrots out of a vending machine as part of a marketing campaign?

Is this the carrot or the stick? Is this a way to encourage people to make healthier food choices, nudging habits slowly in the right direction? Or is it just a sneaky way to market food items to make them appear tastier and more accessible? We can entice youth to eat gimmicky baby carrots out of a sparkling vending machine, but will that encourage them to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables at home? To pack a wholesome lunch and snack, or choose the healthiest option in the lunch line? I’m skeptical, but I hope this is at least a step in the right direction.

Happy National Nutrition Month!

Post Note: October is National Farm to School Month! That's an awareness month I can support.