Recently we looked at the physically addictive nature of some processed foods and the continuing impact that has had on the dynamics of what people buy and eat. I wanted to shift to another aspect of what goes into how things are marketed, sold, purchased and ultimately consumed… language. Marketing is an important part of the history of retail food, but more broadly the language of food shapes and is shaped by science, culture, politics, class and modern society. Today we start with the history of the language of food marketing and its intersection with modern political and moral beliefs.
A Brief History of the Language of Food Marketing
The Safety Era (Late 1800s-1910s): Before mass regulation, food marketing was largely about establishing trust. Then, after a series of scandals involving embalmed beef and poisonous additives, the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act forced marketers to use language that assured safety. Marketers used words like “genuine” and “unadulterated” to promote the perception that they were now “pure” or “made with integrity”
The Convenience Era & The Space Age (1920s-1960s): As people moved to cities and the concept of convenience became more realistic for the average consumer, the language shifted from safety to labor-saving. The wartime advances in food science and their convenience meant marketers could now play on the “instant” or “modern” nature of food, but also now they could play on the advances in science and the post-war American cultural zeitgeist of “progress”. Because in the near-future they would all live in space like George Jetson and eat space food.
Health Focus for Adults & Junk Food for Kids (1970s-2000s): As medical links between diet and health problems like heart disease became more in the public consciousness, food marketing language turned from convenience to functional health. Foods were now promoted to adults as “0%” (something, anything), “fat-free” or “guilt-free”. However, this era also saw the ubiquity of targeted marketing of junk food to kids through television. Fun characters were shown to younger children that described breakfast cereals as “magical” containing “surprises” or “prizes”. Older kids saw marketing that played on food being “fun” or “cool” or that was food that appealed to teenage rebellion
The Clean Era and the Virtue of Food (2000s-Today):
Unfortunately, the only “prize” many kids of the 80s and 90s received from their sugary cereal was pre-diabtes and their “cool” Cool Ranch Doritos made them fat. So as they became adults, another cultural shift in the culture and language of food occurred, and as result the language of food marketing shifted in response. Many young consumers began to distrust industrial processing, not only as a means of eating healthy foods, in a way their parents may have a generation before, but as a way of expressing political and social beliefs. People, particularly young people, became more interested in the origin, sourcing and narrative of food. The concurrent rise and ubiquity of the internet and social media allowed people to find and share information and show their support, commitment or morality to whatever issue mattered to them.
In response (they always respond), food companies and marketers began to adopt more of the language of these movements and show their own “virtue” and commitment to consumers. Eventually, terms that may have started as niche concepts discussed by hipsters in Brooklyn or Portland became part of the language of mainstream food marketing. Terms like “ethically sourced” and “Fair Trade Certified” are just as common today in a Kansas Walmart as they may have been in a 2007 anarchist pamphlet.
The Linguistic Triangle of the Raw, the Cooked and the Rotted:
Building off the previous mention of the language food being used as an expression of ethics and politics, we will need to step back and explain what is humanity’s relationship to food, language, identity and politics.
Claude Lévi-Strauss, a foundational figure in structural anthropology, used the concept of the culinary triangle to explain how humans distinguish themselves from nature. Language transforms a biological necessity into cultural identity. The way we name our food preparation methods reflects our perceived distance from nature. Raw food is a source, but yet to be fully utilized. Cooked food is the transformation of the raw into something higher by human action, making it the highest ideal. Rotted food is food just left to nature without human action. Preparation of food then becomes something that makes us unique from animals and is expressed by our language.
Further expanding on this concept, in English and other languages we make the distinction between animals and meat. Cows, pigs and sheep are things that run around in nature, but we eat beef, pork and mutton on our plates. We also distinguish between methods of cooking. Beef braised in red wine at a Michelin star restaurant is considered to have more technical complexity and therefore more social, monetary and cultural value than cow boiled in water and alcohol from grapes.
These are just examples of our social relationship to food. People may and do reject these types of hierarchies for any reason, but by doing so they are engaging in politics.
Ethical and Political Identity in the Language of Food vs. The Language of Food Marketing
You may ask what all this has to do with food marketing language. The answer is food and the language of food is being used by society and individuals to determine what things and concepts are valuable to them in terms of ethics, monetary cost, environment, politics and any other aspect of society. Movements and personal beliefs are made up of a melange (to stick with the French theme) of structural, societal, environmental and a whole host of other factors expressed through the language of food. Food marketing is about using language to sell a product. This could be a tool for the consumer looking for systematic or systemic changes in food systems or it could be a way to exploit the language of belief. It could be both. We decide everyday with our wallets.
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