Perspective: Food Myth Busting

By WorldLink Staff | March 12, 2013 | Leave a Comment

Anna Lappé sets out to bust food myths, and shares her vision for a good food future.

What inspired the Food Mythbusters project?

For more than ten years I’ve been talking about sustainable food and farming with people across the country – from hipster Brooklyn to small-town Montana. But no matter who I was speaking to, people shared some core questions: Can we really feed the world with sustainable agriculture? Doesn’t good food just cost too much? Don’t people just really want to eat junk food – who are we to say otherwise?

It didn’t take me long to realize that these questions – these doubts about the benefits of sustainable food and the true costs of industrial agriculture – were doubts we have in part because of deliberate marketing campaigns by the food industry itself. Marketing campaigns that are designed to shape what we think we know about food.

The food industry – chemical companies, agribusiness, agricultural pharmaceuticals, food processors and more – spend billions every year on marketing. And while I don’t have that kind of budget, I do have some powerful allies – great food, farming and labor groups who wanted to help spread the real story about our food.

So together with some great organizational partners, we’re creating Food MythBusters: a one-stop shop to get your burning questions about food answered through short films, Q&As with experts, and links to essential research.

CONTINUES IN PERSPECTIVES >