Containing the choice

I recently encountered a woman who told me she drinks lactose-free milk and eats gluten-free foods, not because she is lactose or gluten intolerant, but because “it makes me feel better.” The dairy executive I was with had it about right when he asked, “Should we try and educate people about dairy, or should we sell consumers the products they want?” Let’s face it, a carton of lactose-free or A2 milk carries a good price premium over the standard milk. Truthfully, processors would rather consumers buy branded, premium milks, but there is some thinking behind her purchases that does alarm me a bit. I also wondered about the placebo effect on her – I am spending extra money on this product, it must be helping me. At least it was still milk.
It tied into a discussion at the recent European Dairy Association meeting, where Dr Claude Fischler, a sociologist and director emeritus of research at the Interdisciplinary Institute of Contemporary Anthropology in France, noted that consumers today are confronted with so much choice, they react by shutting down their choices. They restrict their diets voluntarily, not because they don’t have access to certain foods, but because there are so many types of foods. So, they see a video on Facebook about animal cruelty or read something on websites about diets, and instead of getting a pint of milk, they spend the money on almond drinks, or soy, or pea proteins. Not as nutritionally sound, and the vegetables may have more air miles on them than most of us, but it might be seen as a healthier, more sustainable choice.
Another factor is cultural pressure. It does depend on where in the world you are – in some countries this debate is moot, as they have bigger fish to fry, like getting enough nutrition in the first place, or they can’t afford such products. “The diet is determined by biocultural constraints,” Fischler says. Basically, your environment determines what you eat. In Inuit Canada, they probably don’t spend a lot of time drinking soy-based lattes, I suspect.






