A food policy expert has encouraged everyone to know first the consequences of the food they will consume before they buy one. He added that food industries are hiding the consequences away from the consumers.
Tim Lang, a food policy expert based at the University of London, said that the current consumers' consumption of food is affecting the sustainability of the food system. In his article published in Phys.org, he also said that consumers should be aware that a simple purchase of a food could actually worsen the ongoing environmental issues such as climate change, scarcity of water, and deforestation
"Food is either the major or one of the major drivers of climate change, water stress, land use, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, deforestation, the depletion of fish stocks," Lang said. He added that turning away from the land and sea in favor of consumption, the diet people eat nowadays are now considered as the single biggest factor in premature death worldwide, and a key indicator of cultural change and social inequalities.
"It's obvious really - a new politics of food has to unfold in which academics treat consumers with dignity and tell them the truth," he said. Lang added that the neoliberal rhetoric is of consumer independence, yet "everywhere they are kept in the dark."
