Cigarettes and Food

You're probably already wondering what the title means, because cigarettes and food pretty distinct things. You need food to survive, and it will kill you relatively quickly if you don't consume it, while cigarettes kill you very slowly if you do consume them. Obviously both junk food and cigarettes are unhealthy, but excess fat or sugar are pretty harmless compared to nicotine and tar. Unless, of course, you consider the impact that unhealthy eating and smoking have on health, namely that heart disease and other diet-related factors kill more people than smoking does. Is there a connection after all? Quite simply, yes, and it's illustrated quite well by the fact that Kraft, one of the world's largest food processors, is owned by Phillip Morris, one of the world's largest tobacco companies.

Phillip Morris bought Kraft in the 80s, when litigation against Phillip Morris started to become a serious threat. No longer able to completely rely on tobacco products for continued profits, Phillip Morris diversified into ventures that would provide more reliable profits. Food processing is not a high-growth industry, but it is consistently profitable (people need to eat) and thus makes sense for a company looking for stability. The products are also, somewhat surprisingly, marketed in similar ways.

Unprocessed foods are generally healthier but less profitable than processed foods because processing involves additives that allow the product to be marked up for greater profit. As corporations, food processing companies' sole goal is to produce profit for their shareholders, which means marketing the unhealthy processed foods as strongly as possible. The concepts in advertising these food products sound quite similar to those used in advertising cigarettes: the products are not unhealthy (a claim cigarette companies gave up in the 80s), the consumer should have the choice to decide, and marketing to as young an age as possible is ethical. However, companies try to mask the damaging effects of their product, by labeling products as reduced fat when it still contains high levels of fat, for instance, and sow confusion about sound dietary advice.

Advertising to children is unethical, no matter what company is doing it. The tobacco company Camel faced overwhelming criticism when it introduced its Joe Camel cartoon character because it was found to appeal to children and thus form harmful lifelong dependencies. Unfortunately, food companies advertising to children face far less criticism, even though young children cannot make informed choices and have trouble differentiating between programming and advertisements, thus establishing possibly harmful lifelong consumption habits.

It would, however, go against the legal mandate of a corporation to take the moral high road and explain dietary advice properly, reducing sale of their profitable products, or stop advertising to children. Their sale of unhealthy products is very simple to oppose, though. Avoid products that are highly processed, and try to eat local food when you can, as this supports local farmers rather than agribusinesses (corporations), is better for the environment, and tastes better. I'm sure most of you are fairly knowledgeable about nutrition, but it may be worth your while to learn about the differences between the various kinds of fat, to avoid the confusion of "reduced fat" labels etc. Finally, ending advertising aimed at children is stopped most effectively by parents, who have control over their children's viewing habits and who can argue against schools bringing advertising into a learning environment. You could always write to your local political representative, though.

Essentially, the sooner we realize that all corporations have the same inherent flaw, namely that profit is their legal mandate, the sooner we can start working around that flaw and achieving a more enlightened business environment. What do I mean by this? I mean that if all consumers were educated, corporations would no longer have unethical practices because they would not be profitable. (This assumes that corporations cannot hide their actions from an educated populace, which is not unreasonable.) The connection between tobacco and food companies goes beyond mere ownership and shows how this flaw connects all corporations.

Next week: the connection between the mining and pharmaceutical industry! (Just kidding.)