August 16, 2023 • 30 mins
Erin MacGregor is a registered dietitian and passionate food and science communicator. Based on Erin’s experience and education in the food industry she will help us understand what we can look for as we read food-related information and make better purchasing decisions.
Host: Clinton Monchuk
Clinton Monchuk grew up on a mixed dairy, beef and grain family farm outside of Lanigan, Saskatchewan. He received his Bachelors of Science in Agriculture majoring in Agricultural Economics from the University of Saskatchewan and Masters of Business Administration in Agriculture from the University of Guelph. Clinton has enjoyed numerous roles across Canada, the United States and Mexico as a researcher, educator, manager, economist and director of trade policy.
In 2016 Clinton accepted the role of Executive Director with Farm & Food Care Saskatchewan to promote farming and ranching to consumers. Clinton understands the value of increasing public trust in agriculture and actively promotes engagement between the agriculture industry and consumers.
Clinton, Laura and their children Jackson and Katelyn, continue to be active partners on their family grain and layer farm in Saskatchewan and cattle ranch in Oklahoma.
Guest: Erin MacGregor
Erin MacGregor is a registered dietitian and passionate food and science communicator.
With over 15 years of multimedia experience, Erin has become an advocate for honest and transparent communication about the Canadian food system. She has built a reputation for creating on-trend food and nutrition content that is both relatable and meticulously researched - for any audience.
Erin is the co-founder of How to Eat, a food and nutrition communications business and award winning blog, that inspires Canadians to enjoy food and cooking to the fullest. She is also an experienced clinical dietitian in the hospital setting, expertly translating the latest clinical research into common sense nutrition advice for a wide range of patients.
These days, Erin is most passionate about writing and speaking on topics including misinformation in the media, agriculture, biotechnology, and food marketing, with the goal of helping Canadians understand where their food comes, so they can make food choices based on facts, not fear.
Resources:
article: How to spot nutrition misinformation online
article: what does non-gmo on a food label mean?
article: What does all natural on a food label mean?
article: what does organic on a food label mean?
Episode Credits:
Research and writing by Dorothy Long and Penny Eaton, Produced and edited by Angela Larson and Michael Jordan, Music by Andy Ellison-Track title: Gravel Road
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaker 2 (00:07):
From Canadian Food Focus, this is Ask a Farmer.
I'm your host Clinton Macha . ASaskatchewan farmer. In this
podcast, we talk to foodexperts to answer your
questions about your food.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So today, on the podcast, we're gonna be talking
a little bit more about how tospot nutritional
misinformation. And I thinkwe've been inundated with a lot
of different information onsocial media, different things
we read, whether it's new diettrends, new super foods , and
really there's a lot of fluffaround that. And what it is in
(00:51):
our minds, we kind of getskeptical about some of this
stuff. Some of it's actuallylegit, some of it's not. But
it's hard to decipher what isand is not true. So, to try and
get a better handle on this,today, we have Aaron McGregor
with us. So we, we feel you arethe expert of this information
and trying to decipher what istrue and what is not. And we
(01:12):
kind of wanna draw in yourexpertise for all our listeners
out there so they can get abetter sense of how they can
make more informed decisionsabout their food. But before we
get into that, we wanna knowmore about you.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
My name's Erin McGregor, and , uh, I work
primarily as a dietician .
That's my professionaldesignation, and I've done a
lot of different things as adietician . I still wear a lot
of different hats under thatrole. I work as a clinician in
a hospital setting and havedone that for about 15 years.
So , uh, looking after people'snutrition care, who are either
having trouble eating or can'teat in a normal way in
(01:47):
hospital. But I've also donelots of other really
interesting things on the sideas well. So for a long period
of time, I was running anutrition communications
business with a partner , uh,where we wrote a cooking and
recipe blog for Canadians. Um,which, you know, encouraged
people to get back into thekitchen and cook with their
families. But mostly itencouraged people to relax
about their food and whetherthat means, you know, shopping
(02:09):
for it, preparing it, cookingit, feeding their children. We
really wanted people torecognize what an amazing time
it is to be alive when it comesto accessing incredible variety
and affordable food in Canada.
And to make choices around foodbased on facts rather than
fear, which you alluded to inyour introduction. Lots of
(02:31):
folks in Canada have , uh, lotsof different sources of
information around food thesedays, and it can be really
difficult to kind of tease out, uh, what's true, what isn't
true, what's an exaggerationaround food. Some of the other
work I do is, is really talkingabout misinformation and
helping both consumers, peoplethat work in different
industries, dieticians learnhow to recognize misinformation
(02:55):
and how to combat it if they'reusing social media or other
tools to share theirinformation. So I guess that's
the short and long of it. But Imean, I'm on a , a podcast that
focuses on agriculture, and Ishould probably tell that part
of my story because typicallydieticians , you know, we don't
get any meaningful training inagriculture , um, when we come
(03:15):
up through our programming andwrite our exam as dieticians .
And so when I started workingas one about 15 years ago, I'd
never grown up in an area thathad a lot of agriculture. I
lived in an urban space, mostof my , my life. I didn't have
a lot of context aroundagriculture, but as a consumer
facing food professional, I wasgetting a lot of questions
(03:36):
related to how our food wasgrown, what was safe, basic
questions for you Clinton, butmore complex for someone that
doesn't have any kind ofmeaningful experience in
agriculture. And I found thatthe resources that I started to
go to first were more like popculture resources. I was
finding a lot of my informationonline. I was finding a lot of
my information through what Ilike to now call documentaries,
(03:59):
but the farming and fooddocumentaries that scared you
about, you know, bigagriculture and GMOs and that
kind of thing were reallypopular about, you know, 10, 15
years ago. And so I was gettingmost of my information from
there and unfortunately passingthat sort of misinformation on
to consumers from that space.
And, you know, at the end ofthe day, it's my job to, you
(04:21):
know, sift through informationand try to bring evidence to
consumers and patients andclients and whoever I'm working
with. But I failed at doingthat in the agriculture space
because I was a victim to themisinformation myself. And, you
know, around that time I thinkthat , um, the agriculture
industry really started torecognize that misinformation
was a huge problem. I thinkthat a big part of it is that
(04:44):
consumers and farmers havenever been more disconnected.
There are way fewer people thatwork in the egg space these
days, and the direct connectionto consumers can be really
difficult. And so I foundmyself as kind of an
intermediary. The egg industrystarted seeing that and started
seeing dieticians and othertypes of food and media
influencers , um, being thiskind of consumer facing person
(05:07):
and started developing thingslike farm tours , um, so that
dieticians could get , uh, youknow, direct experience seeing
what Canadian farming andagriculture was all about. And
my first tours were throughfarm and food care. Um, there
was a Ontario basedorganization that did one day
tours for people who worked infood and media. And as a food
(05:28):
blogger, I get , I got aninvite onto one of these tours
and it really opened my eyesand, you know, I got the bug
and I wanted to learn more andbecame really curious about
where our food came from. Andit's been, you know, 10 years
I've been on dozens of farmtours , um, throughout Canada
and the US tours ofbiotechnology facilities to
(05:49):
learn about, you know, geneticsand modern agriculture
techniques. And now I use myvoice as more of an advocate
for Canadian agriculture andhelping people to understand
where their food comes from,through, again, facts and not
fear. And that's kind of my mois trying to dispel
misinformation, particularly inthe ag space. I have a real
(06:10):
passion for it and helpingconsumers just really enjoy
eating. And so, you know, it'simportant to bring awareness to
the average consumer, how muchwork , um, what a huge industry
agriculture is here in Canada,how advanced , um, it is from a
tech perspective as well, whichis something that generally
consumers are really unaware ofat this point. I recently went
(06:32):
on a tour in Guelph to some ofthe biotechnology facilities
that are coming up with newpest control measures and
different types of seeds andjust the level of detail that
we get down to when trying to,you know, create new techniques
in agriculture growth things ,different ways. Um, using G p s
using algorithms, AI is on theforefront for sure. This is all
(06:58):
happening in Canadianagriculture across the country.
And, you know, it's, it's notold McDonald that's hand hoeing
field anymore. youknow, ,
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I I always say when I tell kids when I, I go to
talk to them about farmingthat, have you picked weeds in
the back garden of , of yourparents' place? Oh, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. Okay. So could youimagine picking weeds in 4,000
football fields? Oh, no, no.
. I would takeforever pass . I said, yeah,
no, that's a heavy pass. Yeah.
That's why we have differenttechnologies now to do it. So,
(07:31):
but you're, you're right. Likethere , there's all this new
information that's coming outeven on the agriculture side
for me as a farmer to try andget my head around some of it
and, and what we can use andimplement on our farms and
what's coming down the pike inthe future Yeah . To try and
make sure we're ready for it.
And it , and it really is this,it's kind of like that
treadmill, that technologicaltreadmill that just keeps on
(07:53):
going and there's lots of stuffout there we just have to
decipher, you know, what we'regonna use what's useful and,
and maybe pass on some of theother things. Yeah .
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Just like any industry. Right.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
So Aaron , you wrote an article on Canadian Food
Focus talking about how to spotmisinformation when it comes to
nutrition. And, and one of thethings that you actually
brought up right at the startis, is there's an info demic .
Yeah. Do you wanna just talkabout that and , and some of
the different methods that youhave just to spot some of this
misinformation, what we can doabout it ?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
For sure. Yeah. So an info demic really relates to
kind of this avalanche I wouldcall it, of information that
can be both accurate andinaccurate that we really have
to navigate kind of on a dailybasis. And usually it's online
and that large volume ofinformation can make it really
difficult to extract what'sactually true and what's
(08:49):
relevant to the topic at hand.
And so I think that there's nodoubt that we're living through
an pandemic right now as itrelates to many, many topics.
Agriculture being one of them,nutrition being one of them,
being able to spotmisinformation tactics is a
really good way to kind ofweave our way through this info
demic . And now, in terms ofspotting misinformation,
(09:12):
tactics, the point is really tospot the tactics. So it's
really, at this point in time,it's impossible to have
consumers understand or havein-depth knowledge about any
one particular topic enough sothat they would be able to
weeded through all of themisinformation online and
understand what's true andaccurate, right? So you're
(09:33):
never gonna have a consumerwho's never had any kind of
meaningful experience inagriculture, learn enough to be
experienced enough to pull outwhat is misinformation and what
isn't. Same with nutrition. Ittakes many, many years to have
some expertise in nutrition.
I'm a dietician and I don'tconsider myself an expert. I
have some ex expertise in someareas. So it's not about
(09:56):
actually knowing a topicintimately and understanding a
topic. That's not the best wayto pull out misinformation.
It's really learning what thetactics are. And at the end of
the day, this is kind of ahigher level, it's more of
media literacy than it isactually understanding the
topic itself. There are a fewways to become more media
literate and to spotmisinformation without having
(10:18):
in-depth knowledge about atopic.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
You already made comment to the fact that you've
been doing this for so manyyears and you still feel that
there's so much more to learn,right? Yeah. And I feel the
same way in, in agriculture.
The problem ends up being, and, and I , I did actually do a
little bit of research on it tofind out what the psychological
term is. So it's called theDunning Kruger effect, right?
Where oh yeah , you , you know,a little bit of information,
(10:42):
but now you have a platform totell the world, right? Right.
Like, you just wanna telleverybody about this new
information, right ? And youdon't really actually
understand whether or not it'strue or not, right ? So you
have this platform now withsocial media and the internet
to , to do this, but we allknow that as soon as you start
to get little tidbits of moreinformation that, well, it's
(11:03):
actually quite a bit deeperwhen the average consumer sees
some of this stuff that comeson their social media and , and
I'll , we were talking about itbefore. So somebody's looking
at nutritional information. Yep. I would only assume that
there's a ton of informationthat gets populated in their
feeds about this. So how canthe average person say, okay,
(11:26):
you know, that's interesting,but I don't know if that's
true.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
So I think it's really teaching people how to
be skeptical and to usecritical thinking as their
first line of defense ratherthan understanding the topic
itself. Um, and there's a fewways that you can kind of, kind
of go through the few steps to,to apply your critical thinking
skills with topics that youmight be skeptical about. And
in terms of nutritioninformation, one of the red
(11:52):
flags that I look for is towatch out for claims that
aren't backed by a source, forinstance. So like, as a science
communicator, and I wouldconsider yourself that too.
You're , you communicate thescience about agriculture and
what are the facts aboutagriculture on a regular basis.
You know, we provide, we canprovide evidence for the claims
that we're making . So if ajournalist or a writer or a
(12:14):
social media creator is, youknow, making a claim about
nutrition or health, theyshould be able to provide
evidence to support thoseclaims too. Online platforms
make it very easy to shareinformation about sourcing. So
, uh, if it's an article, youcan look for hot links within
the article or at the end of anarticle. Information posted in
(12:35):
the caption of a social mediapost can link you directly to a
scientific paper or well-knownor trusted website. So, you
know, more trusted websites andin.gov.edu, which is an
educational institute or.org,which means it's a nonprofit .
So those are tiny little thingsthat you can look for. The
other thing is adequateevidence is really important
(12:57):
when you come across contentthat presents something that's
new, so new or novelinformation that you've never
heard before, or something thatgoes against the current
consensus or the scientificconsensus, right? So if you
hear someone denying that, youknow, climate change is human
made, for instance, well, thescientific consensus is that,
you know, like 80% of climatescientists believe that humans
(13:21):
cause at least some of climatechange, you would have to
provide a lot of evidence tocounter a sci scientific
consensus. And the same goesfor nutrition. I can give you
an example. For instance , um,let's say a someone on social
media, a creator, you know,comes out and says that a
strictly carnivore diet issomething that's healthy. So
eating only animal products,not eating any vegetables or
(13:43):
grains is the way to behealthy. Well, that creator
would be refuting literallydecades of scientific consensus
about the benefits of a highfiber plant forward diet. And
since it's really, really rarethat one study reverses a
really long held scientificconsensus, this type of claim
(14:03):
should really present evidencefor multiple high quality
sources. And if you don't seethat happening, it doesn't
necessarily mean that the claimis false, but it is a way for
you to stick a tiny little redflag in it and to heighten your
level of skepticism about thatparticular piece of content. So
that's really kind of thenumber one thing that I look
(14:25):
for is sourcing
Speaker 3 (14:26):
What about the emotional factor? And I see a ,
a lot of it, right, where it'sjust a high strung individual
saying, if you eat this, you'regonna have the super best body
in the world and you're gonnalook like me and then pumps his
muscles and woo , wow, I forsure , I wish I had muscles
like that. Right? , howdo you counter a little bit of
that? Because we know that'sout there, right? For sure . So
(14:49):
your mind automatically goesinto, yeah, I like that, I want
that.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Yeah, totally. So that is, that is one way to
appeal to someone's emotion isin a positive way, right? Is to
tell someone, you know, if youbuy this, eat this, do this,
your life will become better.
But I find that it's much, muchworse when the appeal is for
nega to a negative emotion. SoI always say that if a post
(15:16):
makes you feel angry or if itmakes you feel scared, then you
should be skeptical and youshould be wary. And that should
be an automatic red flag foryou. You know, creators know
that a strong emotion canreally impair your ability to
think critically and to processinformation. When you react to
something emotionally that yousee online, just pause for a
(15:36):
brief moment and reflect on thecontent itself, right? So
nutrition research isnotoriously oversimplified in
news, and it often instillsfear as kind of a form of
clickbait. So let's, forinstance, I'll give you an
example. It can be a headlinethat you see on social media on
like an online media sourcethat says just one serving of,
(15:58):
you know, insert literally anyfood here , um, can increase
your cancer risk. And this isalmost certainly misleading
when compared to the actual reresearch it's referencing to,
there's really no such foodthat, you know, causes any one
thing. So anytime you see aheadline that says this one
food causes cancer or may causecancer, stick a red flag in
(16:20):
that as well and be skepticalof it, because that's just not
how nutrition research works.
Nutrition science is extremelycomplex, and in reality it's
almost never, ever unilaterallylike going to glorify or vilify
any one specific food ornutrient. And if you see that
happening in a headline, thenit's important to be skeptical
(16:40):
of that. You know, fear-basedmessaging is also a really,
really common tactic that'sbeing used in social media
currently. So I'm not sure ifyou're familiar with like the
grocery store bro kind ofcontent? No . That you'll see
often on TikTok and Instagram.
So it will be some kind ofsocial media wellness
(17:00):
influencer that walks up anddown the grocery aisles and
picks out foods that youshouldn't eat based on really
scary ingredients that, youknow, this ingredients also
founded a yoga mat. We've heardthat with a subway debate
recently, right? So pointingout foods or ingredients that
are dangerous or toxic, thatkind of content has become
really popular and you know,creators can really benefit
(17:23):
from these claims in a lot ofdifferent ways. So fear-based
messaging draws a lot offollowers. It's really
compelling content, but it alsomay be helping to market that
creator's products or services,right? Right. I'm going to
scare you about this toxicthing or this dangerous thing,
and here come to my websitewhere I sell the supplements or
the services Yeah . To solveyour problem that you're scared
(17:44):
of. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
I was just gonna say, and I don't know if
you've, you've seen that video,but the traveling dietician ,
right? Talking about eggs, I'man egg farmer, right? We
produce eggs on our farm andyou know, depending on the
study and what was released inthe media, right? Like eggs are
good, eggs are bad, eggs aregood, eggs are good, bad, yeah,
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Eggs are a good example. But
Speaker 3 (18:02):
You , you know, over the course of time, I think now
we've realized that it's partof a balanced diet for a for
sure good animal protein. Ifyou wanna use it, great. But
you go back in time and, and itwas like you were vilified for
consuming it, and then it washealth food, and then it was
vilified. I know what you mean.
And this is, this is theemotional thing that happens
(18:24):
with us, right? We get on thesedifferent things as opposed to
slow and steady diet, right ?
Something that, that hits allthose food groups and , and you
can be happy and not nervoustotally or highly emotional
about it, right ?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
That's right. Focus on variety and enjoying what
you eat. Those are two of themost important things about,
you know , having a healthfuldiet.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
So the third kind of area in the article that you
talk about is trying to be moreaware of common nutritional
misinformation tactics. Whatare some of these that our
listeners can place in , intheir minds when they are going
grocery shopping?
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Yeah, so this is more of a group of
misinformation, tactics thatare called logical fallacies.
And a logical fallacy is reallysomething that is a deceptive
or a false argument, but itactually seems like a really
strong argument because itappeals to us psychologically.
It's very psychologicallypersuasive. So , uh, the first
example I'll use is a really,really common one in the
(19:23):
nutrition space, and that'scalled the appeal to nature
fallacy. And this, this is anargument that assumes that
something is good, quoteunquote good as long as it
occurs or exists naturally. Sonatural is better, you know,
synthetic or unnatural is bad.
It's not moral, it's unsafe,it's dangerous. That kind of
(19:45):
categorizes, you know, the goodand bad in terms of natural and
unnatural. Um, and it's reallycommon in spreading
misinformation about food andnutrition. But what I think is
really important to remember isthat there's lots of synthetic
ingredients that have made ourfood supply safer like
preservatives. Yeah . Um, andmore nutritious like vitamin
and mineral fortification andenrichment in some of our
(20:06):
foods, right? And naturallyoccurring things that we find
in our foods, like bacterialike listeria, for instance,
that can be deadly. And so thebottom line here is if someone
is making a claim thatsomething is better or good or
safer, because it's natural,it's not an adequate claim,
natural does not make thingssafer, it does not make things
better. It definitely does notmake things more nutritious.
(20:28):
Yeah. So that's one of thelogical fallacies. It's very
psychologically persuasive.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Sometimes we, we fail to realize that there's a
lot of things that wanna killus out there in nature. Right,
. It's true. And andfailure to understand that
brings in some of thesemisconceptions.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
That's right.
Lightning strikes are natural.
Banner are natural .
Yeah . These things can killyou ,
Speaker 3 (20:49):
. That's
exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah. So the next logical fallacy, it's called a
false dichotomy. So this isreally a tactic that presents
an argument as either black orwhite, when in reality, like
nutrition science in particularis really a ton of shades of
gray in between being wary ofclaims that say a single food
or nutrient is good or bad.
Right? And if you see somethingbeing categorized into black
(21:12):
and white, it's something thatyou should be wary of unless
it's in reference to a foodallergy. Food should never be
categorized in kind of thispolarizing way. So that's
another tiny little red flag aswell. Uh, the next is also a
really common one, a verycommon logical fallacy in the
nutrition world. And it's, thecorrelation does not equal
causation effect. And so thisis the tactic which really
(21:36):
mistakenly argues that whenthings are observed together
that their correlated or onecauses the other. So a really
great easy example to think ofas when the rooster crows in
the morning, does it cause thesun to rise or are they just
observe together? Right? Right. So they are correlated,
they're observed together, butthe rooster is not causing the
sun to rise. Yeah. So, youknow, when claims are made
(21:58):
about , um, you know, anincrease intake of a specific
food or a nutrient causing ahealth problem, it's really
important to be skeptical ofthis type of relationship.
Causal relationships betweennutrition and health are
extremely difficult to prove,and they require a significant
amount of good statisticalanalysis to make a strong
argument. So it's alwaysimportant to stick a little red
(22:21):
flag in that one as well. Yeah.
And so those are kind of threeof the larger logical
fallacies. There's lots ofthem. If you were to Google
logical fallacies, there's, youknow , dozens of different ways
that the human mind wants totake a shortcut. And that
arguments can be reallypsychologically persuasive. And
it's important to understandthe fallacies themselves, these
little type of false argumentsrather than the information.
(22:43):
Because once you see one ofthese false arguments, you can
be skeptical of a piece ofinformation whether or not you
have a lot of knowledge orinformation about that specific
topic. It's
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Great information, not only on the nutritional
side, I think for a lot of ourdifferent aspects of our life.
Yeah . And you mentioned beforethe info demic is not just
about nutrition. Right ? It'sso many other things , uh, in
our life that we're inundatedwith now. Yeah . This kind of
leads us to the fun farm fact.
I think some of the listenersmight not realize this, but did
(23:16):
you know that honeybee colonypopulations in Canada have been
on a steadily increasing ratefrom 2012 until 2021? The low
in bee populations occurred in2013, in which there were about
, uh, 667,000 honeybee coloniesto a high end 2021 when there
were over 810,000 honeybeecolony populations. And this is
(23:40):
from Statistics Canada and theCanadian Honey Council. We've
seen different eitheradvertisements or things on the
media saying that beepopulation's on the decline.
And , and I don't wannadiscredit, there are certain
species of bees that areendangered in different parts
of Canada and North Americathat , uh, need to be saved.
When you look at the stats forthe honeybee populations,
(24:01):
that's the vast majority thatare pollinating Our fruit trees
are , you know, my canola andmustard or flax, right ? Mm-hmm
. just awesomepollinators that are helping
our crops. They're actually onthe increase, not on the
decrease. And I think that's agood news story, but I don't
believe a lot of consumers knowthat. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Well, I mean, sharing information about a
drastically declining Bpopulation is pretty compelling
content to share. And whenthere is free reign to share
information without having theonus to share sources or
evidence of that, that type ofinformation is going to spread
a lot faster. And there'sreally good research to support
(24:44):
this. There was a study done, Ithink it was out of m i t in
2012 that looked at a hundredthousand tweets. Some with true
information, some with falseinformation, and how they got
traction on Twitter. And I'mgonna mess up the exact numbers
here, but essentially, falseinformation travels six times
(25:05):
faster , um, than trueinformation. It gets retweeted
70% more often than trueinformation. And , uh, it
spreads deeper and longerTwitter chains as well. And I
mean, false information'spretty compelling as a consumer
or someone looking throughsocial media and you see this
really fearful fact aboutdeclining B populations, you're
(25:27):
going to wanna retweet thatmore than something like, well,
there's been a gradual increasein B populations over time.
Right. Because that type offearful information's gonna get
more traction for you. Right,right. And people really just
wanna be in the know, they wantto be sharing new and novel and
scary information because itfeels good psychologically to
be someone in the know andsharing something that could be
(25:48):
compelling. Right.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Feeds to your emotional side too. Right?
That's , that's right . Like ,that's Whoa, hey, what, what's
going on here? Right? I I needto tell the world. So
Speaker 4 (25:56):
That's right.
Exactly. Yeah . So again, solike pointing out the tactics
used, right? Well, this isobviously an appeal to emotion.
This is the tactic that's beingused to spread this information
and this is why it'scompelling, because this is how
the human brain works, is is animportant piece to share with
people trying to dispelmisinformation, the tactics
around how it's being done andnot the information itself. I'm
(26:18):
not gonna combat that. Youknow, bees are declining attack
with actual numbers like youjust did. Those aren't at my
fingertips. Right? Um , so I'mlooking for the tactics of
misinformation and not the trueinformation itself. I just
can't be expected to be a beeexpert on top of, you know,
everything else. A very smallniche of nutrition that I feel
like I have some expertise in.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
We have a better, like, understanding now of how
to spot some of thismisinformation and, and just
how to think a little bit morecritically about things when
some of this stuff comes at usonline. Now I'm in the grocery
store, I'm going through theaisles and it is just like an
advertising haven. Yeah . I'mseeing all these different
things coming at me, pickingthe different labels out ,
(27:02):
trying to read them. How do Imake sense of some of that? And
I can always go to thebackside, right? And look at
the, the , uh, the nutritionalfacts and, and kind of compare
foods that way. But what aresome of the ways that we can
approach buying our food so wedon't get sucked into some of
these different tactics thatare possibly being used out
there?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yeah. So I think it's important to consider
packaging as a piece of contenttoo. It's, it's meant to market
a food as well. So you havesome pieces on a package that
are regulated, like thenutrition facts table , uh, the
ingredient lists and allmarketing claims really are
regulated in some way. None ofthem are supposed to be
deceiving, but at the end ofthe day, my advice is, unless
(27:44):
you're looking for somethingvery specific in a food, for
instance, if you have celiacdisease and you need to find
something that is gluten-free,you need to look for a
gluten-free certification. Forinstance, ignore the marketing
labels on food. We have inCanada, one of the best
regulatory systems in theworld, countries all over the
(28:04):
world look up to Canada'sregulatory system and all of
the food that you can purchaseat the grocery store is going
to be safe for you. Um, enjoy avariety of foods, eat what you
enjoy eating. Uh, those are mytop two tips to grocery
shopping. And really just toconsider the package as a
marketing tool and to beskeptical of all of the claims
(28:26):
that are being made there inthe same way that you would be
skeptical of social mediacontent in the ways that we
just kind of reviewed. So justignore most of it unless you
need a specific piece ofinformation. That's my advice.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
You know, sometimes we just need to relax a little
bit and focus on, you know,those key food groups, making
sure we're buying nutritionalfood and, and making sure we
have healthy diets to supportour, our bodies. Right. But I
love your approach. I love theapproach because it just takes
a lot of that fear and anxietyout of food.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Yeah. I mean, that's the point. You know, look at
the history of food and whatwe've had access to from a
global perspective in humanhistory, and there's never been
a better time to be alive. AndI think it's okay to celebrate
what we have now as a win. Um,and sometimes we just need to
celebrate those, you know, goodnews stories, as you say. And
human progress is prettyamazing. Is it perfect? No. Do
(29:23):
we still have room to improve?
For sure. Is it pretty danggood compared to all of human
history? Yes. As well. Yeah .
Right. So just soak it in,enjoy what you eat.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Excellent. Well, thank you very much. This is
good information that we canall take to the grocery store
and, and we appreciate theexpertise
Speaker 2 (29:41):
On this. Aaron , I want to thank you for taking
the time to listen to our Ask aFarmer podcast. We at Canadian
Food Focus value the input fromour listeners and ask that you
share this podcast with yourfriends and family. Remember,
(30:02):
this is a two-way street, so weseek your input for future
segments that are of interestto you about food and farming.
To do this, please click on theAsk us icon at the top of our
website, canadian foodfocus.org . While you're there,
feel free to follow ournumerous social media links and
(30:22):
sign up for our newsletter.
This segment was produced andedited by Angela Larsson,
research and Writing by DorothyLong and Penny Eden. Music by
Andy Elson . I'm your hostClinton Moncha . And from all
of us here at Canadian FoodFocus, we wish you good health
and great Eats.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
From Canadian Food Focus, this is Ask a Farmer.
I'm your host Clinton Macha . ASaskatchewan farmer. In this
podcast, we talk to foodexperts to answer your
questions about your food.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
So today, on the podcast, we're gonna be talking
a little bit more about how tospot nutritional
misinformation. And I thinkwe've been inundated with a lot
of different information onsocial media, different things
we read, whether it's new diettrends, new super foods , and
really there's a lot of fluffaround that. And what it is in
(00:51):
our minds, we kind of getskeptical about some of this
stuff. Some of it's actuallylegit, some of it's not. But
it's hard to decipher what isand is not true. So, to try and
get a better handle on this,today, we have Aaron McGregor
with us. So we, we feel you arethe expert of this information
and trying to decipher what istrue and what is not. And we
(01:12):
kind of wanna draw in yourexpertise for all our listeners
out there so they can get abetter sense of how they can
make more informed decisionsabout their food. But before we
get into that, we wanna knowmore about you.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
My name's Erin McGregor, and , uh, I work
primarily as a dietician .
That's my professionaldesignation, and I've done a
lot of different things as adietician . I still wear a lot
of different hats under thatrole. I work as a clinician in
a hospital setting and havedone that for about 15 years.
So , uh, looking after people'snutrition care, who are either
having trouble eating or can'teat in a normal way in
(01:47):
hospital. But I've also donelots of other really
interesting things on the sideas well. So for a long period
of time, I was running anutrition communications
business with a partner , uh,where we wrote a cooking and
recipe blog for Canadians. Um,which, you know, encouraged
people to get back into thekitchen and cook with their
families. But mostly itencouraged people to relax
about their food and whetherthat means, you know, shopping
(02:09):
for it, preparing it, cookingit, feeding their children. We
really wanted people torecognize what an amazing time
it is to be alive when it comesto accessing incredible variety
and affordable food in Canada.
And to make choices around foodbased on facts rather than
fear, which you alluded to inyour introduction. Lots of
(02:31):
folks in Canada have , uh, lotsof different sources of
information around food thesedays, and it can be really
difficult to kind of tease out, uh, what's true, what isn't
true, what's an exaggerationaround food. Some of the other
work I do is, is really talkingabout misinformation and
helping both consumers, peoplethat work in different
industries, dieticians learnhow to recognize misinformation
(02:55):
and how to combat it if they'reusing social media or other
tools to share theirinformation. So I guess that's
the short and long of it. But Imean, I'm on a , a podcast that
focuses on agriculture, and Ishould probably tell that part
of my story because typicallydieticians , you know, we don't
get any meaningful training inagriculture , um, when we come
(03:15):
up through our programming andwrite our exam as dieticians .
And so when I started workingas one about 15 years ago, I'd
never grown up in an area thathad a lot of agriculture. I
lived in an urban space, mostof my , my life. I didn't have
a lot of context aroundagriculture, but as a consumer
facing food professional, I wasgetting a lot of questions
(03:36):
related to how our food wasgrown, what was safe, basic
questions for you Clinton, butmore complex for someone that
doesn't have any kind ofmeaningful experience in
agriculture. And I found thatthe resources that I started to
go to first were more like popculture resources. I was
finding a lot of my informationonline. I was finding a lot of
my information through what Ilike to now call documentaries,
(03:59):
but the farming and fooddocumentaries that scared you
about, you know, bigagriculture and GMOs and that
kind of thing were reallypopular about, you know, 10, 15
years ago. And so I was gettingmost of my information from
there and unfortunately passingthat sort of misinformation on
to consumers from that space.
And, you know, at the end ofthe day, it's my job to, you
(04:21):
know, sift through informationand try to bring evidence to
consumers and patients andclients and whoever I'm working
with. But I failed at doingthat in the agriculture space
because I was a victim to themisinformation myself. And, you
know, around that time I thinkthat , um, the agriculture
industry really started torecognize that misinformation
was a huge problem. I thinkthat a big part of it is that
(04:44):
consumers and farmers havenever been more disconnected.
There are way fewer people thatwork in the egg space these
days, and the direct connectionto consumers can be really
difficult. And so I foundmyself as kind of an
intermediary. The egg industrystarted seeing that and started
seeing dieticians and othertypes of food and media
influencers , um, being thiskind of consumer facing person
(05:07):
and started developing thingslike farm tours , um, so that
dieticians could get , uh, youknow, direct experience seeing
what Canadian farming andagriculture was all about. And
my first tours were throughfarm and food care. Um, there
was a Ontario basedorganization that did one day
tours for people who worked infood and media. And as a food
(05:28):
blogger, I get , I got aninvite onto one of these tours
and it really opened my eyesand, you know, I got the bug
and I wanted to learn more andbecame really curious about
where our food came from. Andit's been, you know, 10 years
I've been on dozens of farmtours , um, throughout Canada
and the US tours ofbiotechnology facilities to
(05:49):
learn about, you know, geneticsand modern agriculture
techniques. And now I use myvoice as more of an advocate
for Canadian agriculture andhelping people to understand
where their food comes from,through, again, facts and not
fear. And that's kind of my mois trying to dispel
misinformation, particularly inthe ag space. I have a real
(06:10):
passion for it and helpingconsumers just really enjoy
eating. And so, you know, it'simportant to bring awareness to
the average consumer, how muchwork , um, what a huge industry
agriculture is here in Canada,how advanced , um, it is from a
tech perspective as well, whichis something that generally
consumers are really unaware ofat this point. I recently went
(06:32):
on a tour in Guelph to some ofthe biotechnology facilities
that are coming up with newpest control measures and
different types of seeds andjust the level of detail that
we get down to when trying to,you know, create new techniques
in agriculture growth things ,different ways. Um, using G p s
using algorithms, AI is on theforefront for sure. This is all
(06:58):
happening in Canadianagriculture across the country.
And, you know, it's, it's notold McDonald that's hand hoeing
field anymore.
Speaker 3 (07:09):
I I always say when I tell kids when I, I go to
talk to them about farmingthat, have you picked weeds in
the back garden of , of yourparents' place? Oh, yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah. Okay. So could youimagine picking weeds in 4,000
football fields? Oh, no, no.
no, that's a heavy pass. Yeah.
That's why we have differenttechnologies now to do it. So,
(07:31):
but you're, you're right. Likethere , there's all this new
information that's coming outeven on the agriculture side
for me as a farmer to try andget my head around some of it
and, and what we can use andimplement on our farms and
what's coming down the pike inthe future Yeah . To try and
make sure we're ready for it.
And it , and it really is this,it's kind of like that
treadmill, that technologicaltreadmill that just keeps on
(07:53):
going and there's lots of stuffout there we just have to
decipher, you know, what we'regonna use what's useful and,
and maybe pass on some of theother things. Yeah .
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Just like any industry. Right.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
So Aaron , you wrote an article on Canadian Food
Focus talking about how to spotmisinformation when it comes to
nutrition. And, and one of thethings that you actually
brought up right at the startis, is there's an info demic .
Yeah. Do you wanna just talkabout that and , and some of
the different methods that youhave just to spot some of this
misinformation, what we can doabout it ?
Speaker 4 (08:26):
For sure. Yeah. So an info demic really relates to
kind of this avalanche I wouldcall it, of information that
can be both accurate andinaccurate that we really have
to navigate kind of on a dailybasis. And usually it's online
and that large volume ofinformation can make it really
difficult to extract what'sactually true and what's
(08:49):
relevant to the topic at hand.
And so I think that there's nodoubt that we're living through
an pandemic right now as itrelates to many, many topics.
Agriculture being one of them,nutrition being one of them,
being able to spotmisinformation tactics is a
really good way to kind ofweave our way through this info
demic . And now, in terms ofspotting misinformation,
(09:12):
tactics, the point is really tospot the tactics. So it's
really, at this point in time,it's impossible to have
consumers understand or havein-depth knowledge about any
one particular topic enough sothat they would be able to
weeded through all of themisinformation online and
understand what's true andaccurate, right? So you're
(09:33):
never gonna have a consumerwho's never had any kind of
meaningful experience inagriculture, learn enough to be
experienced enough to pull outwhat is misinformation and what
isn't. Same with nutrition. Ittakes many, many years to have
some expertise in nutrition.
I'm a dietician and I don'tconsider myself an expert. I
have some ex expertise in someareas. So it's not about
(09:56):
actually knowing a topicintimately and understanding a
topic. That's not the best wayto pull out misinformation.
It's really learning what thetactics are. And at the end of
the day, this is kind of ahigher level, it's more of
media literacy than it isactually understanding the
topic itself. There are a fewways to become more media
literate and to spotmisinformation without having
(10:18):
in-depth knowledge about atopic.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
You already made comment to the fact that you've
been doing this for so manyyears and you still feel that
there's so much more to learn,right? Yeah. And I feel the
same way in, in agriculture.
The problem ends up being, and, and I , I did actually do a
little bit of research on it tofind out what the psychological
term is. So it's called theDunning Kruger effect, right?
Where oh yeah , you , you know,a little bit of information,
(10:42):
but now you have a platform totell the world, right? Right.
Like, you just wanna telleverybody about this new
information, right ? And youdon't really actually
understand whether or not it'strue or not, right ? So you
have this platform now withsocial media and the internet
to , to do this, but we allknow that as soon as you start
to get little tidbits of moreinformation that, well, it's
(11:03):
actually quite a bit deeperwhen the average consumer sees
some of this stuff that comeson their social media and , and
I'll , we were talking about itbefore. So somebody's looking
at nutritional information. Yep. I would only assume that
there's a ton of informationthat gets populated in their
feeds about this. So how canthe average person say, okay,
(11:26):
you know, that's interesting,but I don't know if that's
true.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
So I think it's really teaching people how to
be skeptical and to usecritical thinking as their
first line of defense ratherthan understanding the topic
itself. Um, and there's a fewways that you can kind of, kind
of go through the few steps to,to apply your critical thinking
skills with topics that youmight be skeptical about. And
in terms of nutritioninformation, one of the red
(11:52):
flags that I look for is towatch out for claims that
aren't backed by a source, forinstance. So like, as a science
communicator, and I wouldconsider yourself that too.
You're , you communicate thescience about agriculture and
what are the facts aboutagriculture on a regular basis.
You know, we provide, we canprovide evidence for the claims
that we're making . So if ajournalist or a writer or a
(12:14):
social media creator is, youknow, making a claim about
nutrition or health, theyshould be able to provide
evidence to support thoseclaims too. Online platforms
make it very easy to shareinformation about sourcing. So
, uh, if it's an article, youcan look for hot links within
the article or at the end of anarticle. Information posted in
(12:35):
the caption of a social mediapost can link you directly to a
scientific paper or well-knownor trusted website. So, you
know, more trusted websites andin.gov.edu, which is an
educational institute or.org,which means it's a nonprofit .
So those are tiny little thingsthat you can look for. The
other thing is adequateevidence is really important
(12:57):
when you come across contentthat presents something that's
new, so new or novelinformation that you've never
heard before, or something thatgoes against the current
consensus or the scientificconsensus, right? So if you
hear someone denying that, youknow, climate change is human
made, for instance, well, thescientific consensus is that,
you know, like 80% of climatescientists believe that humans
(13:21):
cause at least some of climatechange, you would have to
provide a lot of evidence tocounter a sci scientific
consensus. And the same goesfor nutrition. I can give you
an example. For instance , um,let's say a someone on social
media, a creator, you know,comes out and says that a
strictly carnivore diet issomething that's healthy. So
eating only animal products,not eating any vegetables or
(13:43):
grains is the way to behealthy. Well, that creator
would be refuting literallydecades of scientific consensus
about the benefits of a highfiber plant forward diet. And
since it's really, really rarethat one study reverses a
really long held scientificconsensus, this type of claim
(14:03):
should really present evidencefor multiple high quality
sources. And if you don't seethat happening, it doesn't
necessarily mean that the claimis false, but it is a way for
you to stick a tiny little redflag in it and to heighten your
level of skepticism about thatparticular piece of content. So
that's really kind of thenumber one thing that I look
(14:25):
for is sourcing
Speaker 3 (14:26):
What about the emotional factor? And I see a ,
a lot of it, right, where it'sjust a high strung individual
saying, if you eat this, you'regonna have the super best body
in the world and you're gonnalook like me and then pumps his
muscles and woo , wow, I forsure , I wish I had muscles
like that. Right?
that? Because we know that'sout there, right? For sure . So
(14:49):
your mind automatically goesinto, yeah, I like that, I want
that.
Speaker 4 (14:54):
Yeah, totally. So that is, that is one way to
appeal to someone's emotion isin a positive way, right? Is to
tell someone, you know, if youbuy this, eat this, do this,
your life will become better.
But I find that it's much, muchworse when the appeal is for
nega to a negative emotion. SoI always say that if a post
(15:16):
makes you feel angry or if itmakes you feel scared, then you
should be skeptical and youshould be wary. And that should
be an automatic red flag foryou. You know, creators know
that a strong emotion canreally impair your ability to
think critically and to processinformation. When you react to
something emotionally that yousee online, just pause for a
(15:36):
brief moment and reflect on thecontent itself, right? So
nutrition research isnotoriously oversimplified in
news, and it often instillsfear as kind of a form of
clickbait. So let's, forinstance, I'll give you an
example. It can be a headlinethat you see on social media on
like an online media sourcethat says just one serving of,
(15:58):
you know, insert literally anyfood here , um, can increase
your cancer risk. And this isalmost certainly misleading
when compared to the actual reresearch it's referencing to,
there's really no such foodthat, you know, causes any one
thing. So anytime you see aheadline that says this one
food causes cancer or may causecancer, stick a red flag in
(16:20):
that as well and be skepticalof it, because that's just not
how nutrition research works.
Nutrition science is extremelycomplex, and in reality it's
almost never, ever unilaterallylike going to glorify or vilify
any one specific food ornutrient. And if you see that
happening in a headline, thenit's important to be skeptical
(16:40):
of that. You know, fear-basedmessaging is also a really,
really common tactic that'sbeing used in social media
currently. So I'm not sure ifyou're familiar with like the
grocery store bro kind ofcontent? No . That you'll see
often on TikTok and Instagram.
So it will be some kind ofsocial media wellness
(17:00):
influencer that walks up anddown the grocery aisles and
picks out foods that youshouldn't eat based on really
scary ingredients that, youknow, this ingredients also
founded a yoga mat. We've heardthat with a subway debate
recently, right? So pointingout foods or ingredients that
are dangerous or toxic, thatkind of content has become
really popular and you know,creators can really benefit
(17:23):
from these claims in a lot ofdifferent ways. So fear-based
messaging draws a lot offollowers. It's really
compelling content, but it alsomay be helping to market that
creator's products or services,right? Right. I'm going to
scare you about this toxicthing or this dangerous thing,
and here come to my websitewhere I sell the supplements or
the services Yeah . To solveyour problem that you're scared
(17:44):
of. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
I was just gonna say, and I don't know if
you've, you've seen that video,but the traveling dietician ,
right? Talking about eggs, I'man egg farmer, right? We
produce eggs on our farm andyou know, depending on the
study and what was released inthe media, right? Like eggs are
good, eggs are bad, eggs aregood, eggs are good, bad, yeah,
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Eggs are a good example. But
Speaker 3 (18:02):
You , you know, over the course of time, I think now
we've realized that it's partof a balanced diet for a for
sure good animal protein. Ifyou wanna use it, great. But
you go back in time and, and itwas like you were vilified for
consuming it, and then it washealth food, and then it was
vilified. I know what you mean.
And this is, this is theemotional thing that happens
(18:24):
with us, right? We get on thesedifferent things as opposed to
slow and steady diet, right ?
Something that, that hits allthose food groups and , and you
can be happy and not nervoustotally or highly emotional
about it, right ?
Speaker 4 (18:36):
That's right. Focus on variety and enjoying what
you eat. Those are two of themost important things about,
you know , having a healthfuldiet.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
So the third kind of area in the article that you
talk about is trying to be moreaware of common nutritional
misinformation tactics. Whatare some of these that our
listeners can place in , intheir minds when they are going
grocery shopping?
Speaker 4 (19:01):
Yeah, so this is more of a group of
misinformation, tactics thatare called logical fallacies.
And a logical fallacy is reallysomething that is a deceptive
or a false argument, but itactually seems like a really
strong argument because itappeals to us psychologically.
It's very psychologicallypersuasive. So , uh, the first
example I'll use is a really,really common one in the
(19:23):
nutrition space, and that'scalled the appeal to nature
fallacy. And this, this is anargument that assumes that
something is good, quoteunquote good as long as it
occurs or exists naturally. Sonatural is better, you know,
synthetic or unnatural is bad.
It's not moral, it's unsafe,it's dangerous. That kind of
(19:45):
categorizes, you know, the goodand bad in terms of natural and
unnatural. Um, and it's reallycommon in spreading
misinformation about food andnutrition. But what I think is
really important to remember isthat there's lots of synthetic
ingredients that have made ourfood supply safer like
preservatives. Yeah . Um, andmore nutritious like vitamin
and mineral fortification andenrichment in some of our
(20:06):
foods, right? And naturallyoccurring things that we find
in our foods, like bacterialike listeria, for instance,
that can be deadly. And so thebottom line here is if someone
is making a claim thatsomething is better or good or
safer, because it's natural,it's not an adequate claim,
natural does not make thingssafer, it does not make things
better. It definitely does notmake things more nutritious.
(20:28):
Yeah. So that's one of thelogical fallacies. It's very
psychologically persuasive.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Sometimes we, we fail to realize that there's a
lot of things that wanna killus out there in nature. Right,
brings in some of thesemisconceptions.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
That's right.
Lightning strikes are natural.
Banner are natural
Yeah . These things can killyou ,
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah. So the next logical fallacy, it's called a
false dichotomy. So this isreally a tactic that presents
an argument as either black orwhite, when in reality, like
nutrition science in particularis really a ton of shades of
gray in between being wary ofclaims that say a single food
or nutrient is good or bad.
Right? And if you see somethingbeing categorized into black
(21:12):
and white, it's something thatyou should be wary of unless
it's in reference to a foodallergy. Food should never be
categorized in kind of thispolarizing way. So that's
another tiny little red flag aswell. Uh, the next is also a
really common one, a verycommon logical fallacy in the
nutrition world. And it's, thecorrelation does not equal
causation effect. And so thisis the tactic which really
(21:36):
mistakenly argues that whenthings are observed together
that their correlated or onecauses the other. So a really
great easy example to think ofas when the rooster crows in
the morning, does it cause thesun to rise or are they just
observe together? Right? Right. So they are correlated,
they're observed together, butthe rooster is not causing the
sun to rise. Yeah. So, youknow, when claims are made
(21:58):
about , um, you know, anincrease intake of a specific
food or a nutrient causing ahealth problem, it's really
important to be skeptical ofthis type of relationship.
Causal relationships betweennutrition and health are
extremely difficult to prove,and they require a significant
amount of good statisticalanalysis to make a strong
argument. So it's alwaysimportant to stick a little red
(22:21):
flag in that one as well. Yeah.
And so those are kind of threeof the larger logical
fallacies. There's lots ofthem. If you were to Google
logical fallacies, there's, youknow , dozens of different ways
that the human mind wants totake a shortcut. And that
arguments can be reallypsychologically persuasive. And
it's important to understandthe fallacies themselves, these
little type of false argumentsrather than the information.
(22:43):
Because once you see one ofthese false arguments, you can
be skeptical of a piece ofinformation whether or not you
have a lot of knowledge orinformation about that specific
topic. It's
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Great information, not only on the nutritional
side, I think for a lot of ourdifferent aspects of our life.
Yeah . And you mentioned beforethe info demic is not just
about nutrition. Right ? It'sso many other things , uh, in
our life that we're inundatedwith now. Yeah . This kind of
leads us to the fun farm fact.
I think some of the listenersmight not realize this, but did
(23:16):
you know that honeybee colonypopulations in Canada have been
on a steadily increasing ratefrom 2012 until 2021? The low
in bee populations occurred in2013, in which there were about
, uh, 667,000 honeybee coloniesto a high end 2021 when there
were over 810,000 honeybeecolony populations. And this is
(23:40):
from Statistics Canada and theCanadian Honey Council. We've
seen different eitheradvertisements or things on the
media saying that beepopulation's on the decline.
And , and I don't wannadiscredit, there are certain
species of bees that areendangered in different parts
of Canada and North Americathat , uh, need to be saved.
When you look at the stats forthe honeybee populations,
(24:01):
that's the vast majority thatare pollinating Our fruit trees
are , you know, my canola andmustard or flax, right ? Mm-hmm
.
our crops. They're actually onthe increase, not on the
decrease. And I think that's agood news story, but I don't
believe a lot of consumers knowthat. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Well, I mean, sharing information about a
drastically declining Bpopulation is pretty compelling
content to share. And whenthere is free reign to share
information without having theonus to share sources or
evidence of that, that type ofinformation is going to spread
a lot faster. And there'sreally good research to support
(24:44):
this. There was a study done, Ithink it was out of m i t in
2012 that looked at a hundredthousand tweets. Some with true
information, some with falseinformation, and how they got
traction on Twitter. And I'mgonna mess up the exact numbers
here, but essentially, falseinformation travels six times
(25:05):
faster , um, than trueinformation. It gets retweeted
70% more often than trueinformation. And , uh, it
spreads deeper and longerTwitter chains as well. And I
mean, false information'spretty compelling as a consumer
or someone looking throughsocial media and you see this
really fearful fact aboutdeclining B populations, you're
(25:27):
going to wanna retweet thatmore than something like, well,
there's been a gradual increasein B populations over time.
Right. Because that type offearful information's gonna get
more traction for you. Right,right. And people really just
wanna be in the know, they wantto be sharing new and novel and
scary information because itfeels good psychologically to
be someone in the know andsharing something that could be
(25:48):
compelling. Right.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Feeds to your emotional side too. Right?
That's , that's right . Like ,that's Whoa, hey, what, what's
going on here? Right? I I needto tell the world. So
Speaker 4 (25:56):
That's right.
Exactly. Yeah . So again, solike pointing out the tactics
used, right? Well, this isobviously an appeal to emotion.
This is the tactic that's beingused to spread this information
and this is why it'scompelling, because this is how
the human brain works, is is animportant piece to share with
people trying to dispelmisinformation, the tactics
around how it's being done andnot the information itself. I'm
(26:18):
not gonna combat that. Youknow, bees are declining attack
with actual numbers like youjust did. Those aren't at my
fingertips. Right? Um , so I'mlooking for the tactics of
misinformation and not the trueinformation itself. I just
can't be expected to be a beeexpert on top of, you know,
everything else. A very smallniche of nutrition that I feel
like I have some expertise in
Speaker 3 (26:39):
We have a better, like, understanding now of how
to spot some of thismisinformation and, and just
how to think a little bit morecritically about things when
some of this stuff comes at usonline. Now I'm in the grocery
store, I'm going through theaisles and it is just like an
advertising haven. Yeah . I'mseeing all these different
things coming at me, pickingthe different labels out ,
(27:02):
trying to read them. How do Imake sense of some of that? And
I can always go to thebackside, right? And look at
the, the , uh, the nutritionalfacts and, and kind of compare
foods that way. But what aresome of the ways that we can
approach buying our food so wedon't get sucked into some of
these different tactics thatare possibly being used out
there?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
Yeah. So I think it's important to consider
packaging as a piece of contenttoo. It's, it's meant to market
a food as well. So you havesome pieces on a package that
are regulated, like thenutrition facts table , uh, the
ingredient lists and allmarketing claims really are
regulated in some way. None ofthem are supposed to be
deceiving, but at the end ofthe day, my advice is, unless
(27:44):
you're looking for somethingvery specific in a food, for
instance, if you have celiacdisease and you need to find
something that is gluten-free,you need to look for a
gluten-free certification. Forinstance, ignore the marketing
labels on food. We have inCanada, one of the best
regulatory systems in theworld, countries all over the
(28:04):
world look up to Canada'sregulatory system and all of
the food that you can purchaseat the grocery store is going
to be safe for you. Um, enjoy avariety of foods, eat what you
enjoy eating. Uh, those are mytop two tips to grocery
shopping. And really just toconsider the package as a
marketing tool and to beskeptical of all of the claims
(28:26):
that are being made there inthe same way that you would be
skeptical of social mediacontent in the ways that we
just kind of reviewed. So justignore most of it unless you
need a specific piece ofinformation. That's my advice.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
You know, sometimes we just need to relax a little
bit and focus on, you know,those key food groups, making
sure we're buying nutritionalfood and, and making sure we
have healthy diets to supportour, our bodies. Right. But I
love your approach. I love theapproach because it just takes
a lot of that fear and anxietyout of food.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Yeah. I mean, that's the point. You know, look at
the history of food and whatwe've had access to from a
global perspective in humanhistory, and there's never been
a better time to be alive. AndI think it's okay to celebrate
what we have now as a win. Um,and sometimes we just need to
celebrate those, you know, goodnews stories, as you say. And
human progress is prettyamazing. Is it perfect? No. Do
(29:23):
we still have room to improve?
For sure. Is it pretty danggood compared to all of human
history? Yes. As well. Yeah .
Right. So just soak it in,enjoy what you eat.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Excellent. Well, thank you very much. This is
good information that we canall take to the grocery store
and, and we appreciate theexpertise
Speaker 2 (29:41):
On this. Aaron , I want to thank you for taking
the time to listen to our Ask aFarmer podcast. We at Canadian
Food Focus value the input fromour listeners and ask that you
share this podcast with yourfriends and family. Remember,
(30:02):
this is a two-way street, so weseek your input for future
segments that are of interestto you about food and farming.
To do this, please click on theAsk us icon at the top of our
website, canadian foodfocus.org . While you're there,
feel free to follow ournumerous social media links and
(30:22):
sign up for our newsletter.
This segment was produced andedited by Angela Larsson,
research and Writing by DorothyLong and Penny Eden. Music by
Andy Elson . I'm your hostClinton Moncha . And from all
of us here at Canadian FoodFocus, we wish you good health
and great Eats.
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