How Is Food Political? Market, State, and Knowledge - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 15

how ideas matter in food politics: The GMO is the anchor of the ideational continuum.
Nevertheless, ideas figure prominently in framing other spheres of food politics in simi-
lar ways, though with less controversy around the normative and empirical dimensions
of contested knowledge. “Junk” food offers an illustration.
Junk Food: State, Market, and Choice
Politics centered on the question of what is to be produced ? are mediated by new, and less
contested, knowledge interpolated by states and civil-society organizations. One exam-
ple is helpful in illustrating the prominence of new knowledge and old interests is inter-
national convergence and disagreement around the proper roles of tradition, states, and
markets.
Mexico in 2013 legislated new taxes on sugared beverages and “junk” food. The tax
on sugar-sweetened beverages was set at 10 percent, with an additional 8 percent tax
on “junk food” (defined as foods containing more than 275 calories per 100 grams). In
response, Mark Bittman (2013) expressed in the New York Times an increasingly com-
mon consensus:
. . . with obesity-associated Type 2 diabetes at record levels, it's widely agreed that we
have to moderate this diet. Which means that, despite corporate intransigence, we
have to slow the marketing of profitable, toxic and addictive products masquerading
as food.
What do we learn from this episode about broader food politics? First, knowledge medi-
ation is critical. This view of threat and the framing—“addictive products masquerad-
ing as food”—are not a priori obvious or consensual; there is also conflict with at least
some tradition. The triad of sugar-obesity-diabetes has not always been known, and is
still not universally accepted; it is resisted, not surprisingly, by organized food-producer
interests. Michael Pollan's Mom imaginary is not helpful; many mothers consume sug-
ared beverages and “junk” food and reward kids with both. Tradition may not be so use-
ful a guide as knowledge advances. Might the market provide better answers? Bittman
attributes to junk food—along with “toxic and addictive”—the designation “profitable.”
Individual preferences drive markets to produce what consumers will buy—granted
under the influence of propaganda from producers (Nestle 2002). Consumption is in a
pure market world decided by market preferences of individuals: if one chooses badly,
the harm is to the individual. Caveat emptor . Society—or its putative agent the state—
has no standing. Or does it? Market outcomes in food turn out to have externalities,
much like the externalities that drive state regulation of production decisions on the
land, such as effluents of nitrogen and pesticides. But a necessary condition for action
on those collective interests is, first, conceptualization of a community, and second,
knowledge of collective consequences of individual behavior, and finally some means of
protecting a putatively public interest.