Discusses problems involved in the introduction of synthetic foods into the American diet. Outlines an approach to utilization of synthetic foods in the future feeding of the country and world.Institutional and Behavioral Economics,

Cain, Jarvis L.

English

Research Papers in Economics

SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF SYNTHETIC FOODS
by
Jarvis L.
University of
College Park,
Cain
Maryland
Maryland
Discusses problems involved in
the introduction of synthetic
foods into the American diet.
Outlines an approach to utili-
zation of synthetic foods in the
future feeding of the country
and world.
As consideration is given to the next
thirty to fifty years in the food industry,
the issue of synthetic foods is one that
looms ever-larger on the scene. The purpose
of this paper is to takea look at some of
the major aspects involved in the future
development of these items. The discussion
will not be technological, physiological,
economic, or systemic, although psychological
aspects have their influence upon all these
areas and more. What ttieauthor proposes
to do is to look, as best he can, into the
minds of consumers and of people in the
food industry today and to isolate both
positive and negative psychological aspects
to the development and use of synthetic
foods in the future.
At this point it is necessary to state
that the views which follow are necessarily
biased for they come from a future oriented,
food distribution economist and not from a
psychologist. The author trusts that both
the members of the food industry and the
psychologists will be patient so that these
fundamental issues canbe explored and hope-
fully dealt with in the near future.
The Nature of Synthetic Foods
In attempting to provide a meaningful
definition for ’’synthetic foods’’, we actually
come across one of the major psychological
aspects which are the subject of this paper.
The dictionary provides uswith the follow-
ing:
Journal of Food Distribution Research
Synthesis —
1) composition or combination
of parts or elements so as
to form a whole.
2) the combining of often
varied and diverse ideas,
forces or factors into
one coherent or consistent
complex.
Essentially these definitions say that
to synthesize we must take parts and build
them into some sort of a whole. Therein
lies the first of the psychological aspects
for discussion. “Whatpartsare recombining
into what wholes for what purpose?” To this
date there has been no common understanding
among either consumers or people in the food
industry as to exactly what are synthetic
foods . Those foods or supplements to foods
already introduced have be;n quite diverse
and much more importantly have been cloaked
with an aura ofmystery. The highly techno-
logical nature of the items has made them
somewhat less than comprehensible to the
common man, in fact to anyone who does not
have intimate knowledge of food technology.
If we do not understand what something
is, then there is always the natural tendency
for us to fear and mistrust it. The vast
majority of consumers and food industry
people do not understand all the technology
involved in the nutritional make-up of the
“natural foods” that we have eaten for many
years. However, we have seen them before;
we know where they came from; we have eaten
them before with no ill effects; and since
they come from nature they just simply have
to be good. It’s as if there were some
‘fnatural law” that covers this situation.
Another aspect of the problem lies in
the fact that man has historically sought
to draw out the “good-bad” dicotomy in the
items which he deals with during his life.
February 73/page 41Hence, if natural foods are “good” then
surely anything that is “not natural”
(synthetic) must indeed be bad. Man in his
desire to catalogue everything has fallen
into this perplexing logical trap. Thus ,
we are experiencing the age old condition
that has plagued mankind and has tended to
slow his rate of inquiry — “fear of the
unknown”.
Back to the definitional problem for a
minute. If we say that natural foods are
those ina given state found in nature, then
we must say that logically synthetic foods
are those that are not found in such a given
state in nature. This definition is not
correct because there are many food items
(such as from the sea) that man has not yet
tried to eat from their “natural state’l.
Also, we might take two or more “natural
food” items and combine allor parts of them
into some sort of ’’synthetic food” products.
This is only part of the definitional prob-
lem. We may synthesize IIfoodsll from nutri-
tional elements found anywhere in nature or
extracted from other sources found anywhere
in nature.
So, what exactly isa “synthetic food”?
The author will be the first to confess his
inability to arrive at a satisfactory gen-
eral definition. However, this condition
serves to point up one of the major chal-
lenges in this area. How is it possible to
present a positive image of an item or series
of items to the public or to an industry if
there is not common understanding of the
nature of the items being presented? Now
that we have confessed to ignorance of the
basic area being discussed, wewill compound
the problem by discussing this “thing we
haven’t clearly defined yet” in terms of
consumer and food industry aspects.
Consumers Look at Synthetic Foods
Consumers view this phenomenon of syn-
thetic foods from several separate and re-
lated points ofview. First consumers react
as individuals and we shall consider some
of the major psychological aspects of indi-
vidual behavior. Second, they react in
terms of groups and institutions to which
they belong or must deal with. We shall
also discuss some of these relationships.
In addition, there is not only the conflict
February 73/page 42
within the individual and within the group
to be considered, but also one must think
in terms of the individual versus group
reactions.
As an individual, each consumer is made
up of a sum total of his or her collective
experience and training which is influenced
by such things as habit, taste, preferences,
religion, ethnic and geographic influences.
No attempt will bemadehereto deal with all
of this morass of conditions, traits and
reactions . The point to be made in this
particular portion of the discussion is that
regardless of which factors one attempts to
analyze, the experience almost all consumers
have had is in terms of “natural foods”.
Moreover, the limited experience that con-
sumers may have had with synthetic foods has
been in sort of a semi-disguised form.
Possibly natural foods were supplemented with
certain synthetic nutritional elements. Or
more likely, the synthetic product was dis-
guised as a natural product such as soybean
hamburger or “synthetic bacon”. A third
case might have been such items as breakfast
cereals, snack foods, desserts, oleomargarine
or filled milk. In these cases, the consumer
was not sure what he or she was eating, it
was not “natural food”, but after some con-
siderable resistance, these products have
been accepted.
Two points are pertinent from this dis-
cussion. First, most of individual consumers
experience has been with “natural foods”.
Enter the “good-bad” problem again. Second,
the average consumer may in reality be eating
many synthetic foods or synthetically supple-
mented foods and not reallybe aware of this
fact. Hence, there could bean internal con-
flict for the individual - natural “bad” re-
action to synthetic foods~ yet still he is
consuming an ever larger proportion of his
diet in these items.
In terms of groups of consumers, all
the psychological aspects which pertain to
individuals also pertain to groups. There
is, as well, a further dimension which pro-
ceeds to add its complication to the picture.
One must consider all the various groups that
consumers belong to: civic, social, reli-
gious , ethnic, fraternal, etc. Not only
must
each
thought be given to the psychology of
individual group, but also there is the
Journal of Food Distribution Researchadditional aspect of group interaction with-
in a certain segment of the society.
While one individual may be willing to
accept synthetic foods as an individual, he
or she may not because of feared reprisal
from the group. Similarly, an individual
group may not object to synthetic foods, but
will not be willing to incur the disfavor of
other groups — either individually or col-
lectively. Thus, one must consider an en-
tirely new, immensely complex group of
interrelationships , which may adversely ef-
fect attitudes toward synthetic foods,
Additionally, groups are traditionally
much more reluctant to change and also
slower to change than indi~iduals, This
condition tends to extend the time frame
which must be used in planning nutrient
delivery system changes.
The foregoing discussion considers the
consumer individually and collectively, in
a static sense. For planning purposes the
element of change at both levels must be
introduced to further complicate an issue
that is already complex enough. One must
consider how all the relationships and
interrelationships will develop as of some
date in the future; as well as the various
stages each will go through to get from the
present to some future date.
.Justto put the ltfrosting on the cake”
we must remind ourselves that we are not
really sure what these “synthetic foods”
are that are being introduced into this
seemingly endless morass of relationships.
The Food Industry Looks At
Synthetic Foods
When consideration is given to the food
industry, we must look at the individual,
the firms and the institutions involved in
.
the production, processing and distribution
of food products, Of course, we cannot for-
get the industries that supply the food in-
dustry with a wide variety of inputs and
those industries that serve the food industry
such as transportation and packaging. With-
out repeating the previous discussion, each
individual must be considered, then each
firm, and each institution as well as all the
intra and inter actions that exist. Further,
all the individuals and both consumers and
professionals, and many times the positions
of the two view points are opposing. To
summarize the situation, it is considerably
more complex than the consumer side because
of the many institutional levels and service
industries , Yet it may be simpler from the
point ofview of having fewer total individ-
uals to deal with, even though each individ-
ual is both a consumer and a professional.
The food industry has another charac-
teristic similar to consumers - most of its
experience has been with natural foods. Al-
though some firms have been working in syn-
thetics for some years, all the production
and production related people in the food
industry, most of the processing anddistrib-
uting people aswell as firms and institutions
have their experience with natural foods.
This is true both from the point of view of
consumption and profession.
Let us consider, for a moment, this
finely structured food industry with its
multi-layered system for production, pro-
cessing and distribution of food products,
together with supporting and input industries
and the vast governmental and educational
system designed to regulate and support its
activity. Such an industry has been oper-
ating until relatively recently almost ex-
elusively with natural foods, Then synthetic
foods raise their threatening, collective,
ill-defined heads and what happens? This
industry is threatened with competition for
the first time. To get to the meat of the
issue, jobs and other vested interests are
threatened and people are understandably
quite concerned. The first reaction is
negative. Strike down the intruder, lest
he “rock the boat”!! Oleomargarine and
filled milk are two classic examples,
A little historical sketch might be
pertinent at this point. The basic structure
of the present day food industry, as well as
the supporting and input industries, govern-
mental and educational institutions, was
developed during a period in time when a
vast majority of our people were engaged in
the production of food. To make the history
lesson short and to the point, times have
changed and only a small portion (less than
5%) of our people are involvedin the produc-
tion of our food. Yet the basic structure has
Journal of Food Distribution Research February 73/page 43not changed. Of course, there have been
changes. Distribution and transportation
have seen the greatest number. Processing
has had its share and production has
changed - largely in terms of scale, however.
Nevertheless, the basic posture has not
changed. This is especially true in the
governmental and educational institutions
involved with the food industry.
Back to the synthetic foods question.
How does this abbreviated piece of history
pertain to the issue at hand? The issue is
just this. If it is possible to more effi-
ciently and effectively feed our people and
maybe most of the world’s people by some
“synthetic” means, then those in the exist-
ing industries, governmental and educational
institutions who servedor supposedly served
these industries could have their jobs
threatened. ..oreven eliminated. This could
very well happen, in fact, to the author.
From the point ofview of psychological
aspects, we are dealing with fear of change,
rejection, institutional inertia, inability
to adjust to changing situations, frustra-
tion of inadequacy, the crushing defeat of
seeing our own “brain child” destroyed or
worse, “put out to pasture”. These psycho-
logical aspects are important in industries,
but the author would like to think the
profit motive has a way of fairly rapidly
weeding out the unproductive and incompetent
(government intervention and unions aside).
When we move to the governmental and educa-
tional institutions, the civil service sys-
tem and the tenure system, plus the fact
that man has been very hesitant to develop
meaningful, useable evaluation tools for
these institutions, has made rapid change
impossible and even slow change a painful
and unsure process.
Thus, we find parts of industries,
governmental and educational institutions,
designed for one purpose, but struggling
mostly unwillingly and superficially to ad-
just to catch up to the present day which
requires an entirely different purpose of
them. Of course, with all the struggling
to become relevant to today there is pre-
cious little, if any, time left to consider
such issues of tomorrow as: synthetic
foods . And, after all, tomorrow is for the
next generation, isn’t it?? Or is it??
The Challenge
As the situation has been presented,
one would easily consider the mass of psy-
chological problems from either the con-
sumption side or the food industry point of
view, let alone both, tobe completely over-
whelming. The challenge is to face and
conquer these problems along with the tech-
nological, physiological, economic, systemic
and other problems as well. To those who
accept the challenge, more power to you. To
those who ignore it, “pax vobiscum”.
A Response to the Challenge
In order to end this paper ona positive
note, the author will briefly outline a sug-
gested procedure for dealing with the syn-
thetic foods problem. Such steps would be
as follows:
1, Analyze the problem of feeding
future generations from the point of view
of providing adequate nutrients for life
support and growth. The vehicle to transfer
the nutrients shouldbe unimportant at first.
Look at the problem from a world-wide point
of view. The future will have little time
for state ornationalistic differences. Most
importantly view the problem from the point
of view of the future and not from the past
or present. Facilities, — institutions, and
procedures designedto solve pastor present
problems will not begin to solve those of
the future. Man’s tendencyto tackle tomor-
row’s problem with yesterday’s tools is the
greatest stumbling block to effective solu-
tion of our pressing food problems.
2. Effective national and/or super-
national leadership must be found or devel-
oped who will possess the point of view
described above and who will possess the
imagination, foresight, and intestinal for-
titude to plan adequately and lead a ‘[foot
dragging” institutional framework into the
future.
3. New organizations , institutions
and procedures must be developed to handle
the problems of the future. The most impor-
tant characteristic of these groupings of
people, facilities and technology, and
capital must be lack of rigidity. Factors
of production must be brought together to
February 73/page 44 Journal of Food Distribution Researchsolve a particular problem and then move on
to solve another problem, Man’s desire for
“permanent empires“ is the major deterent to
swift progress in institutional adaptation
to meet rapidly changing needs.
4. One of the reasons for this s~owness
of institutions to adapt to change in the past
has been the almost complete lack of mean-
ingful, quantifiable, useable criteria for
evaluation. In addition to the scarcity of
criteria, those few that were in use were
not themselves evaluated often enough to see
if the criteria were “relevant”. So the
proposal is for better criteria that are
consciously kept up to date.
5. In order to provide a relatively
smooth transition from today to tomorrow,
a coordinating group must be developed to
assist making new use of those parts of the
industry for which there is no more need,
and to bring in those parts that do not
presently exist. Retraining, early retire-
ment and other adaptive measures must be
employed to ease the pain of transition and
keep progress toward the goals orderly.
Lack of alternatives and man’s instinct for
survival make change untenable for some.
Removal of, or easing the transition over
theke barriers will aid in effective change
management,
6. What is probably implicit in all
these suggestions in that the industry must
develop a “future attitude”. One must con-
dition himself to look toward the future
with confidence to meet the ever widening
and deepening stream of change which will
move at an even faster rate with a positive
stance, The “ostrich approach” of clinging
desperately to the past and only being
dragged “kicking and screaming” into the
present, let alone the future, simply cannot
be tolerated. The speed of especially
technological and hopefully social change
to keep pace in the future will be “mind
boggling H to those with the proper attitude.
Unfortunately, those without it will most
probably “blow their minds”.
The approach suggested above is only
stated in the broadest of terms. What is
needed now is an immense amount of effort
to flesh out the skeletons and get on with
the job. Truly a challenge within a
challenge.
1
Webster’s Third New International
Dictionary, (unabridged). G & C Merriam
Company, 1965.
Journal of Food Distribution Research February 73/page 45

SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF SYNTHETIC FOODS

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