If this industry, that has over-promised and under-delivered for years, would be helpful to the consumer, it would make a large difference in the health of people.

I understand your point about the realistic necessity of modern food, but it still could be made much healthier without hurting their bottom line.

Ashley, we eat about one or two salads per week. Over a year that makes it about 80. How would you grow that many on such a small space? And how do you deal with it during winter, if you don’t have a greenhouse?

I agree, the “healthy” claims are the worst of the bunch and leading the pack is Ferrero – no other company exploits this as badly as they are. It has gotten to the point where I developed a very personal antipathy toward the company 😀

Look into square foot gardening, it’s much easier to produce large volumes of food in a small space. It’s also a lot less work than you describe, we grow all of our fruit and veg that way and it takes up a surprisingly small amount of space and time.

I think you’re right that people are fooling themselves but they are actively being fooled by cynical marketing departments. Here in the UK we have such products as Loch Muir Smoked Salmon. You’d be forgiven for believing there might actually be a Loch Muir in Scotland but there isn’t. Likewise there is no Willow Farm tucked away in the English countryside lovingly crafting cheese. I’d say that’s downright sneaky. It’s tough for busy shoppers to penetrate this marketing bluff and work out what they are buying. As you point out, this doesn’t really matter in most cases but the deception is there all the same.

The deception has a more sinister face in it’s use of the word Healthy and other implications of heathfulness on products that have no real or even relative health benefits. I don’t think it’s consumers’ fault that giants like Nestle and Kellogs have fooled them into believing that the dried starch paste flavoured with significant quantities of sugar and salt that these firm peddle in a dizzying range of breakfast cereals are “healthy”. They add vitamins and usually take into account the milk you add in the per bowl nutritional profile. Yes the vitamins might be useful but is that bowl of sugar really a “healthy way to start the day”? I doubt it. But the wording and pictures are very good and implying that they are. Personally I’d ban the use of the word healthy full stop. It’s ill-defined and often misleading.

For those worried about fibre you can buy the same junk with added fibre. I don’t believe that you can make foods by mixing up component nutrients and it be as healthy as less processed foods. There are 1000’s of nutrients in natural foodstuffs and we are discovering them and their utility all the time. It’s not just about carbs, fat, protein and vitamins in terms of long term health.