"WHAT IS GOOD FOR YOU IS NOT GOOD FOR ME"-THE NEW GM FOOD PARADIGM!

The high priests of GM Foods, the American Government seems to be practicing a fraudulent deception on the citizens, if recent reports suggesting that members of the administration including the president do not eat GM foods, scrupulously following an organic food based diet! Added to this the creators of this demonic foods the monopolistic corporate players which has a vice like grip on the government are also consuming only organic foods. The problem is that there is no regulations in the country that could have forced the industry to label foods containing GM food ingredients. Same appears to be true in China also where elite is fed with safest foods containing no dangerous chemicals or genetically mutilated ingredients. Can there be a more disgraceful practice of double standards than these examples? While America is considered a "bastion" of democracy, the Chinese is at the other end of the spectrum with no personal freedom available to its citizens! What a remarkable situation where democracy or communism does not make much difference to the food safety environment. Here is a take on this paradox!  

"With a sad twist of irony, corporate and government elite dine on safe, organic food while the masses, those very people who are supposedly represented and protected by their governments, are poisoned by hidden genetically modified organisms, pesticides and dangerous contaminants. The presidential family demands organic food in their kitchen, yet behind closed doors, shake hands with the biotech industry. China's top brass is fed by an exclusive, gated organic garden while the rest of the population consumes GM food, steroid contaminated meat and dairy laced with melamine. Even Monsanto's own employee's command non-genetically modified food in their canteen. Access to clean, organic and healthy food is not a given right anymore -- it has become a political battleground with the average citizen suffering the loss".

What is reprehensible in this situation is the reluctance on the part of the ruling elite to even provide a transparent labeling policy that would have enabled the citizen to choose the food one wants! The mammoth procession of American citizens from New York city to Washington D C to plead with the president to make the food industry label appropriately foods tainted with GM ingredients does not sem to have moved the President to order such a policy. The forth coming referendum in California regarding compulsory labeling of M foods made and sold in that state may yet arouse sufficient urgency on the part of the US government to join more than 50 countries where such labeling laws are in force.

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com

CONSUMER PERCEPTION ON SERVING SIZE-BRAIN AND GEOMETRY

One of the largest marketing strategies of this century has been to down size the contents of a food package without the consumer ever aware of the same. If a standard package of potato chips containing 200 gm of product is converted into a newly designed packaging pouch with 20 gm less chips it is unlikely that any busy bee consumer will ever notice it. Added to this confusion if the contents are declared with odd weight parameters, the chances of the consumer finding out are still less. To day most food manufacturers world over have adopted this strategy very successfully with their food packs containing about 15-20% less products compared to that two years ago and the price line is maintained to preserve the image of the industry as one beating inflation! Computer design of packages is a rewarding business because the potential for cheating the human brain is enormous. According to knowledgeable psychologists human brain is supposed to be weak in geometry incapable of assessing sizes of containers and the contents held by them. If this is so can there be a solution that can remedy the situation? Probably no because food consumers invariably make mechanical decisions regarding purchases without paying much attention to the label declaration where, at least in the US most manufacturers include the price per unit weight for easy comparison of prices of different competitors. Here is an interesting expose' on the subject of gullibility of human brain.    

"Recently, Pierre Chandon, a French marketing professor and visiting Harvard Business School scholar, decided to test the idea that consumers know what's best for them. He asked 294 people to estimate — using photos of a 6.5-ounce bottle (the standard for decades), a 12-ounce can or a 12-ounce cup as benchmarks — how much liquid was in a range of cups, starting at 12 ounces all the way up to a 50-ounce "Double Gulp." While it sounds simple, respondents consistently guessed wrong, assuming that the larger cups held about 20 percent to 40 percent less liquid than they actually did. Dozens of other studies, using jelly beans, popcorn, ice cream and alcoholic drinks, have also shown that consumers can't be depended on to perceive serving sizes accurately. The reason comes down to the fact that the human brain has a surprisingly tough time with geometry and often can't accurately gauge when an object has doubled or even tripled in size. It's even trickier when the object is a wide-mouth cup, larger on the top than the bottom. "We tend to underestimate the increase in the size of any object," said Professor Chandon, director of the Insead Social Science Research Center in Paris. "When you double the size of something, it really looks just 50 to 70 percent bigger, not twice as big."

In India there was a time when manufacturers were allowed to market only in certain sizes stipulated under weights and measures regulations but this was relaxed with the provision that odd sizes can be offered after declaring in small print on the label that it is not a standard size! The result is that practically all manufacturers started packing consumer products in odd sizes, volumes and measures putting the buyers in great disadvantage. Fortunately this policy is now being reversed but there is still no provision for printing rate per unit which ought to have been insisted upon. This human weakness is the basis of policy decisions by some governments in limiting sale of high sugar beverages to less than a certain size to discourage indiscriminate consumption of such high energy products which have the potential to cause over weight and obesity. Here is a basis for putting reasonable restrictions on the industry so that the perceived brain inadequacy to select what is really required, is addressed.  

V.H.POTTY
http://vhpotty.blogspot.com/
http://foodtechupdates.blogspot.com