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Essay / Food Policy in the Food Industry - 710
Therefore, I argue that food marketing is an imperative element that lends food policy to a sociological game. Typically, any trip to a grocery store takes you through aisles filled with food products loaded with sugars, fats, salts, and calories that, ironically, are heavily promoted, bringing in large sums of money for sellers. The trick of retailers is that they give you what you want, tasty, ready-to-prepare meals. What many don't recognize is the quality of these foods. As described in Eat Drink Vote, most of these products are processed foods with minimal nutritional value – “junk food” – filled with texturizers, colors and flavors designed to make them look and taste like “real” food (Nestlé 136). Once producers use imagination as a skill, the influence on sales is astronomical rather than marketing the truth. So, researchers are finding, for example, that focusing on positive attributes (like taste) is often more effective than focusing on negative aspects, namely the bad things the food might do to you. The real problem with the food system is when consumers claim to want to eat healthily, but in reality, many are confused by nutritional advice and complicated ingredient lists. As a result, this is where marketers take advantage of the confusion by responding to rising ingredient costs that don't result in higher prices. A common example is the bagel.