Food-culture extremes reverberate back to farm

The absurdity of our civilization’s extreme relationship with food hit me like a runaway snowboard the other night while watching the Ozempic Olympics in between commercials advertising pizza and french fries.

The relentless marketing, alternately promoting weight-loss support and foods that lean towards making us fat, isn’t aimed at the elite winter athletes strutting their stuff on the world stage in Italy. It’s a safe bet they didn’t achieve the peak of human fitness on a diet of pizza and french fries. It’s equally doubtful they require injections of the GLP-1 class of drugs to help manage their weight.

These athletes deserve our admiration and respect, but to be fair to the rest of us, most working stiffs don’t have the time, drive or resources to devote full-time to the pursuit of extreme fitness.

No, those commercials are aimed at the couch potatoes back home, subjecting us to both temptation and a shortcut to redemption as we bear witness to these feats of human endurance.

The effects of swinging between food-culture extremes, however, reverberate through the food chain right back to the farm. There’s a cost that merits consideration, as evidenced by the food business twisting itself into a pretzel trying to understand how these drugs affect consumer demand.

First, these products cause consumers to eat less, which has companies shifting their product lines to more nutrient-dense foods. It’s also now known one of the unintended consequences of rapid weight loss is a loss of muscle.

Lately, the focus has shifted to how to support consumers in their post-GLP-1 phase as users move away from the drugs due to cost, side-effects or other reasons. Recent studies are indicating the weight they lost bounces back four times faster than weight lost through traditional diet and exercise.

That has shifted attention to creating low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods, with a particular emphasis on protein.

A recent Farm Credit Canada analysis outlined how this plays out for dairy farmers, to cite one example.

A decade ago, those farmers were told they needed to produce milk with a higher proportion of butterfat, which led to shifts in pricing, genetics and feeding strategies to accommodate.

Now demand is tipping back to protein, leading marketing boards to once again adjust pricing formulas to incentivise a higher ratio of protein in the milk supply. Change involves cost, and costs eventually find their way into the price of food.

“Does this protein craze have staying power? It will take years and successive generations of breeding to shift the herd towards higher protein, lower butterfat-producing animals,” FCC economist Graeme Crosbie said.

That’s a good question. Looking back over the countless extreme approaches grabbing headlines in recent generations — the Atkins diet, keto, low-fat, high-fat, cabbage, carnivore, meatless, vegan, California, intermittent fasting … to name a few — many have caused food-sector pivots, but ultimately, most had limited staying power.

Now, before anyone else steps up to tune me in, I am reminded every time I look into the mirror I could stand to lose a few pounds. So, this is in no way a judgment of those who are taking whatever steps they deem necessary to find good health.

I might someday eat my words. But based on what I know now, I don’t see Ozempic or its GLP-1 counterparts as the answer, any more than I see a pathway to good health by eating extreme amounts of pizza and french fries.

Like many of the weight-loss movements that have preceded these modern medical miracle drugs, the reality is more nuanced than first believed. These drugs no doubt have their place, but they aren’t risk-free and the decision to use them requires careful consideration.

The biggest strike against them in my book is they work by taking the fun out of eating. Gathering over food is such an integral part of how we celebrate, grieve and socialize — is that the trade-off we must make for longevity?

The only approach I’ve found that truly has staying power is the Double M: moderate consumption and more movement.

Laura Rance is executive editor, production content lead for Glacier FarmMedia. She can be reached at lrance@farmmedia.com