Healthy eating: opening up the field of possibilities

After three years marked by inflation, price is, for the majority of French people, the main obstacle to adopting a quality diet. The ultimate paradox: those who feed us sometimes don't have the means to eat properly themselves. Can we collectively accept this?

Eating well should be a fundamental right , which does not stop at consuming five fruits and vegetables a day. It is about building a system capable of feeding current and future generations, which respects living things and biodiversity. Can we accept that our food travels around the Earth? Or that it must be saturated with pesticides to meet globalized demand?

Tribune

This situation reflects the limitations of our consumption model and calls for a profound transformation. Because cheaper products, often less environmentally friendly and sometimes proven harmful, have become the norm.

As long as we accept the marketing of mass-produced food products on the other side of the world and with heavy use of chemicals, organic and local products will remain at a disadvantage. Tons of food travel thousands of kilometers, with staggering environmental costs. This structural dependence weakens our local sectors and makes any food sovereignty illusory. And yet, making the Origin'Info logo mandatory is absent from the political agenda.

As long as junk food products receive better promotion than quality products, the imbalance will persist. Ultra-processed products, rich in salt, sugar, and cheap fats, flood media and shelves. What if someone finally dared to make the Nutri-Score mandatory and ban advertising for the lowest-rated products?

As long as mass retailers continue their price wars, the accessibility of quality products will remain limited. There's no pride in selling pork chops for two euros per kilo. This price is destructive, unrelated to the product's real value. The sense of accessibility it creates is illusory: the wages of those who work from the farm to the consumer's cart serve as the adjustment variable. How many Egalim laws will it take for prices to finally allow for better remuneration throughout the value chain?

As long as we continue to imply that a local, organic, and balanced diet is the preserve of the privileged, a portion of the population will continue to believe it's not for them. Yet bulk purchases, local, seasonal fruits and vegetables, and homemade products are all vectors of accessibility. Changing food purchasing habits requires a cultural transformation that is not the sole responsibility of consumers. What signal does it send in this regard when the communication budget for the Organic Agency is cut ?

All these mechanisms, because they dry up demand for virtuous products, fuel a vicious circle. And for the most vulnerable households, it's a double whammy: these cheaper, poor-quality products rhyme ultra-processing with malnutrition, and poverty with health problems.

Yet, there are operators who are committed through virtuous initiatives. Together, they are challenging our models of solidarity, such as the Social Security for Food, which elevates the right to quality food to the same level as the right to health. This is certainly insufficient, but the initiative opens up a range of possibilities. It reminds us of our responsibility as a society, which, on the one hand, overflows with wealth, and on the other, leaves so many people in poverty. These examples must inform our policies and influence economic actors. To define virtuous rules that oblige us to a fairer, more united... and more responsible world.