For as long as there have been food brands, there have been campaigns about the quality of what’s in them, and our diets in general

British chef Jamie Oliver’s campaigns, in the UK and the US, to persuade people to change what they eat have had mixed success. But such campaigns have been devastatingly effective when they target what companies get up to. We can happily condemn bad food being put forward by greedy corporations, even if we cannot quite bring ourselves to look at our own choices.

Some UK food companies were left reeling when Oliver pointed the finger at their products, accusing them as being among the worst examples of what was being pushed onto children in school dinners. Products were withdrawn, but not before companies had suffered the kind of bad publicity that would keep any chief executive awake at night.

Of course, this was just the latest incarnation. Over the last couple of decades companies such as McDonald’s and Coca-Cola have often been on the back foot as changing government and consumer demands caught them off guard.

Proactive response

Anxious to get better at avoiding such traps, the food and drink sector has been scrambling to change what goes into food. Less salt. No trans-fats. They have become more proactive and less reactive.

Some of this has been about improving the make-up of the staples of the food industry. But another huge focus has been on the emerging food categories that provide choice for consumers seeking the healthier lifestyle – based on either the addition of something, like added fibre or, with the probiotic products, “good bacteria” or the reduction of something. Less fat. Fewer additives.

And, of course, fewer calories.

Over centuries, one wholly natural food – sugar – has become one of the most wildly desirable foods in history. Not only can you use it to sweeten drinks, you can cook with it to make a wide range of desserts. You can caramelise it. You can make it into a syrup. By boiling it to just the right temperature, you can use it to make a French meringue. It is versatile and delicious.

Unfortunately, its over-consumption comes at a cost.

The rising levels of adult and child obesity have a number of causes. “Empty calories” and high levels of fat from junk food plus inactive lifestyles are held to be the biggest culprits.

But the consumption of sugar is also a significant part, and for many people it is one of the most visible symbols. And so people have searched for some time for an alternative that provides at least some of the benefits without the costs. Unfortunately, the benefits have usually come with new costs all of their own.

The first artificial sweetener was saccharin, which was discovered in the middle of the 19th century accidentally by Constantin Fahlberg, who spilled a chemical on his hand and later noticed it was very sweet. As the first sugar alternative, when interest in the sector began to grow it was the most important in defining the nature of sugar substitutes.

Health concerns

Over time, awareness developed that there might be problems with this convenient alternative. Numerous studies have linked saccharin with bladder cancer in rats, for instance. At one point the US government required it to be labelled as potentially hazardous to health – a compromise reached after the industry fiercely lobbied in the face of a proposed ban.

In the 1950s, cyclamate was introduced. But in 1969 the US banned it because of allegations of a link to cancer during laboratory tests, although it remains approved in a number of other countries, including the UK.

Next in the queue was aspartame, generally sold under the name of NutraSweet or Equal. It has been linked to allergic reactions in some people, although such claims are unproven and the US Food and Drug Administration says the product has been extensively tested and shown to be safe. Pregnant women are discouraged from consuming it. However, aspartame is commonly used as a sweetener in diet drinks and manufacturers of products containing aspartame have consistently defended its safety.

Finally, there came sucralose, sold as Splenda. Sucralose has a similar composition to sugar, but its chemical make-up is such that the body cannot digest it, which means it cannot absorb calories from it. It has become the biggest selling sugar substitute in the US market to date.

The value of artificial sweeteners in tackling issues of obesity has been questioned by some doctors and dieticians. The American Dietetic Association, for instance, says: “Existing evidence does not support the claim that diets high in [sugar] by themselves have caused an increase in obesity rates.” If sugar has been only a secondary cause of obesity, replacement with non-calorific alternatives won’t in itself make a difference.

Writing in his newsletter, US doctor, and nutrition expert, John McDougall expands on this theme. “Other components of the diet such as fats, oils, meats, and dairy products are the major health burdens, not sugar. Think about the last time you saw an obese person standing in line at the counter of your favourite fast food restaurant. Did he/she order a diet soda? Of course! … The soda is the penance for the real sin – the supersized meal, washed down by the diet soda.”

The right way to satisfy our innate desire for sugars is to get them from whole foods, he says. “From starches, vegetables and fruits.”

McDougall goes on to say that stevia – the first plant-based sweetener – with its natural base and safety record “may be the best choice” when you use a sugar substitute.

Even if the recommendation is slightly grudging, it is perhaps a good indicator that the arrival of stevia into the mix is changing the terms of the debate.

That is probably a good thing, since many people who appreciate a kick of the white stuff will think that McDougall’s prescription sounds too much like a hairshirt diet.

The science of stevia

Stevia is a shrub native to Paraguay and is grown in parts of South America and Asia. One particular species, stevia rebaudiana, is 300 times sweeter than sugar.

Steviol glycosides were first extracted from the plant in 1931 by French chemists. It was considered for use as a sweetener during the food shortages in Britain during the second world war.

The key sweetening agents are stevia glycosides, of which there are 10 in the stevia leaf. Only one of these, rebaudioside A, or rebiana has sweetness without bitter notes or metallic taste. This has to be extracted from the plant using a water-only process while food grade ethanol is used to further purify the extract into rebiana (in a process similar to how vanilla essence is extracted).

Rebiana has zero calories, does not cause tooth decay, and is safe for use by people with diabetes. It also has the benefit that, unlike some other sweeteners, it is heat-stable, meaning that it can be used in some forms of cooking.

The stevia shrub requires manual handling, and is currently grown on small scale plantations. This gives the product a higher cost. As it becomes popular this will probably change.

Rebiana needs to be mixed with a bulking agent to be able to manage its high sweetness. Cargill’s stevia-based tabletop sweetener Truvia uses erythritol, a natural sugar alcohol.

Stevia’s bumpy road to regulatory approval

Stevia has been used as a sweetener in Japan for decades, having been introduced there in 1970. During the 1970s and 1980s it was sold freely in herbal and health food stores in the US.

In the late 1980s, it began to appear in the US as a dietary supplement, but the US Food and Drug Administration denied several attempts to market stevia as a food additive.

In 1988, events in the US took a bizarre turn when the publishers of the book Cooking with Stevia were ordered by federal agents to destroy all copies, on the grounds that they encouraged people to use stevia in ways other than those permitted. As the publishers pointed out at the time, you could legally acquire the Anarchists’ Cookbook which showed you how to make explosives and how to pursue credit card fraud. But not a stevia cookbook, which showed you how to make tapioca pudding.

In 1991, an anonymous complaint led to the US Food and Drug Administration categorising stevia as an unsafe food additive, and banned its use. Many people believe that the complaint originated from a large multinational with interests in the artificial sweetener business. Stevia, as a natural product, could not be patented by a single company. The ban seemed to fly in the face of FDA guidelines at the time.

The ban was removed in 1994 when a new act was passed that recognised the use of stevia as a dietary supplement. This still did not permit its use as a food additive, for example as a sweetener. Sceptics asked how stevia could be considered safe for consumption as a dietary supplement, but unsafe for consumption as a food additive.

In 2008, the FDA gave approval for Truvia and another product using stevia extract to achieve “generally recognised as safe” status. From this point, Truvia was able to be introduced and marketed as a natural sweetener.

In Europe, stevia is still not approved for use except in France, but earlier this year the European Food Safety Authority published a scientific opinion asserting its belief that steviol glycosides are safe for consumption, and setting an acceptable daily intake level. This is widely seen as opening the door for full regulatory approval during the coming year.

Cargill – from ethics to sustainability

Cargill started small, as a family-owned company founded at the close of the American civil war in 1865, with one grain storage warehouse. As it grew into a more diversified food company over the coming century, it held to basic “our word is our bond” style ethics.

Throughout the first century of its life, this was focused on fair play.

For instance, writing in 1951, the then chief executive said: “Our reputation for integrity has assured our customers of integrity of products and of contract … Integrity is the back-bone of our credit which makes it possible for us to borrow many times our working capital.”

In the 1970s, a memo to employees listed five concepts on ethical business: (1) the need to operate ethically in all countries; (2) the need to have open discussion to resolve issues; (3) that any business obtained through unfair practices was wrong; (4) that any business must be recorded and audited; and (5) that any conduct that was immoral or unethical would lead to disciplinary action.

The company has been, for most of its history, a commodities company without a high profile brand. Over time, it would acquire businesses with their own brand and would let them pursue their own brand identity. After a period of such growth, the company began to act as a holding company, with a lot of diversity beneath the overall umbrella.

In the 1990s, however, the Cargill leadership decided it needed to create a much stronger identity for Cargill itself – and this became focused around an aim to become “the global leader in nourishing people”.

In 1995, Cargill adopted a set of guiding principles to formalise its ethical commitment in how it did business across the group.

It recently became one of the few privately owned companies to produce a corporate responsibility report, covering a wide range of issues such as supply chains, rural development, food safety, environmental innovation, workplace and community engagement.

This story is part of a special corporate focus written and produced by Ethical Corporation and supported by Cargill. For more information about Ethical Corporation’s occasional corporate focus series or other publishing opportunities please contact andrew.bold@ethicalcorp.com.



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