Poiesis Prax (2003) 2: 41–52 DOI 10.1007/s10202-003-0032-7 FORUM

Miltos Liakopoulos Æ Doris Schroeder

Trust and functional foods. New products, old issues

Published online: 22 May 2003 Ó Springer-Verlag 2003

Abstract Trust in the ‘‘agro-food’’ sector has been declining in recent years reflecting a general decline of trust in traditional decision making processes. The introduction of new technologies in the production of foods re-introduces the problem of trust and highlights the parameters affecting its structure and direction. This paper discusses the issue of trust in relation to the introduction of functional foods into the market. Trust is assessed as both a philosophical and a psychological construct with particular emphasis on its communication aspects. The paper ends with specific recommendations for action in the agro-food sector. Keywords Trust Æ Food ethics Æ Technology assessment Æ Functional foods

1 Introduction Over the past decade, public trust in science, medicine and biotechnology has been faltering despite well-publicised technological advances and despite stronger regulations to protect the environment (p. 11 in O’Neill 2002). This development has been particularly marked in the area of food science with strong opposition to genetically modified foods. This paper partly reflects work done with Professor Cees Midden, Technical University of Eindhoven, as part of an expert technology assessment project for the Europaeische Akademie Bad Neuenahr Ahrweiler GmbH. M. Liakopoulos (&) Europaeische Akademie GmbH, Wilhelmstrasse 56, 53474, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany E-mail: [email protected] D. Schroeder Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, PR1 2HE, UK

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We shall review the issue of trust with regard to new developments in food science, namely functional foods. Although not all functional foods require highly technological processing, many do and hence they pose a new challenge to consumers. It is far from certain how the public will receive functional foods and whether they will eventually play a major role in daily life. The emerging social debate either views them as having ‘‘overall positive effects on health policy and the economy in general’’ (TAB 1999) or simply as ‘‘the next generation of Frankenfoods’’ (Corporatewatch 2000), with arguments reminiscent of the GM food debate in the mid-90s. What is certain is that functional foods and their success in the market will depend on various parameters, paramount of which is ‘‘trust’’. In this article, we shall first outline the essentials within the functional food debate. What are functional foods and which potential benefits or detriments could arise from their development? A brief general description of the concept of ‘‘trust’’ will be given in order to examine how trust is related to the functional food debate. Finally, we shall ask how trust in food science could be improved by analysing how risk information could be communicated effectively. The article will conclude with a number of recommendations.

2 Functional foods The term ‘‘functional food’’ was introduced by Japanese researchers more than twenty years ago, but the concept still defies uniform definition. The first attempt to define them, spoke of ‘‘any food that has a positive impact on an individual’s health, physical performance or state of mind in addition to its nutritive values’’ (Goldberg 1994). Since then, several bodies have developed their own definitions but to date neither Europe nor the US have issued a legal version. However, European scientists have made a thorough attempt by providing the following preliminary definition (Diplock et al. 1999): ‘‘A food can be regarded as ‘functional’ if it is satisfactorily demonstrated to affect beneficially one or more target functions in the body, beyond adequate nutritional effects, in a way that is relevant to either an improved state of health and well-being and/or reduction of risk of disease. Functional foods must remain foods and they must demonstrate their effects in amounts that can normally be expected to be consumed in the diet: they are not pills or capsules, but part of a normal food pattern.’’ Hence, functional foods are foods that provide nutrition as well as additional health benefits. The best-known example of a functional food is probably margarine enriched with phytosterols in order to reduce cholesterol levels in those who consume it (the first such product was issued in Finland in 1995 under the trade name Benecol). Functional foods could potentially be used for improved health or well-being in a range of areas, including cardiovascular system, gastrointestines, growth, metabolism, defence against free radical oxidation, and to enhance psychological functions. Although safety issues are paramount in food production and nutrition, functional foods differ from more traditional products, as they also raise issues of efficacy. Whilst the avoidance of food-borne pathogens, allergens and toxins is an issue for all foods, the achievement of a health or well-being

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benefit is not. Usually this benefit is restricted to drugs for which stringent efficacy tests apply. One of the main challenges in showing the efficacy of functional foods is to find biomarkers to adequately assess the physiological impact of functional foods. For many of the diseases associated at least in part with diet (e.g. cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity), well-controlled human intervention studies are still needed to substantiate any claims. Unsurprisingly, there is considerable interest in functional foods from food companies as the market potential for these products is high. Functional and fortified foods and drinks are estimated to reach a market value of 186 billion Euro by 2005 with an average annual growth of 11% (Euromonitor 2000). Two segments, risk reduction for cardiovascular disease and weight control, appear to dominate developments. However, functional foods do not only impact on the micro-economic level (individual commercial companies). Health-improving foods could potentially have a considerable public health effect, if consumers were well informed and willing to change their diets. On the other hand, it is highly difficult to predict the effect of functional foods on the health of a nation. Even though individual studies reliably show that the consumption of, for instance, phytosterols can reduce blood cholesterol levels and thereby the risk of cardiovascular disease, it is by no means clear how the effects on individual patients would translate to a population at large. A study by the Swiss Centre for Technology Assessment (p. 150 in Menrad et al. 2000) showed, for instance, that the public health effect of functional foods in Switzerland is negligible. Of course, future developments might go into a different direction. Functional foods are only just emerging, particularly in the European market. Whether these foods can have an impact on public health expenditure depends highly on their acceptance by consumers. One can hardly overestimate the importance of public perceptions in food developments. Recent food scandals have sensitised the public to a significant extent, particularly in Europe. Health claims (e.g. ‘‘will lower your cholesterol level’’) cannot—in most cases—be verified by consumers; they can only be accepted, rejected and possibly misunderstood. Hence, questions of understanding and trust are intimately linked with functional foods. Likewise, awareness and knowledge about functional foods are essential prerequisites for any potential benefits that might be derived from this new food category. Will functional foods be accepted by consumers who are wary of food scandals? A difficult question to answer, since phenomena such as neophobia1 , curiosity or variety seeking influence decisions about novel foods but are hard to forecast. However, the essential element of public perceptions on functional foods is trust. Trust in both the sources of information and the relevant regulations have to be high to ensure acceptance of new foods.

1 Neophobia is the tendency of consumers to avoid or resist unknown foods, a trait that might be particularly strong in relation to novel foods. It has been argued that this tendency might have an evolutionary origin.

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3 Trust Since the 1980s, ‘‘trust’’ as a concept has received most attention from sociologists. Starting with Niklas Luhmann (1979) and Bernard Barber (1983), the sociological literature on trust has ‘‘turned into [a] rich intellectual enterprise with a large and constantly growing number of contributions’’ (Sztompka 1999). In the mid-1990s, micro- and macro-economists joined the effort through Francis Fukuyama’s (1995) claim that trust is a social virtue that significantly affects the creation of prosperity. With a few exceptions2 , philosophers only expressed an interest in the topic at the turn of the millennium with the most notable contributions coming from Onora O’Neill (2002) and Jennifer Jackson (2000). How can the topic of trust be approached within the constraints of a journal article? It seems that philosophers, economists, psychologists and sociologists deal with ‘‘trust’’ in different manners and we shall look at their findings separately starting with philosophers. According to Richard Holton (p. 67 in 1994) trust is a three-place predicate, which essentially means that person X trusts person Y to do action Z. This implies that trust always arises with reference to a particular action. I trust my dentist to drill a hole in my tooth, but not to drill a hole in a brick wall to install my new heating system. I trust a decent looking stranger on a train to look after my suitcase, but not to look after my little nephew. Trust understood as a three-place predicate reveals an important characteristic that philosophers have pointed out. Trust is essentially about accepting human vulnerability (p. 235 and 239 in Baier 1986). Human beings can never be fully independent from each other, that is they can never carry out all necessary actions Z by themselves. They need to rely on others to help them in their daily routines and beyond. Trust means letting others take care of something the truster cares about, hence making him or her vulnerable (p. 240 in Baier 1986). However, the feeling of vulnerability can be reduced if trust is placed well combined with trustworthiness of Y. Ideally, when trusting, one achieves a feeling of security about others’ benevolence and conscientiousness (p. 43 in Becker 1996). As the Oxford English Dictionary says, trust is a ‘‘firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability or strength of someone or something’’. Hence, trust is placed because human beings are vulnerable entities that cannot live in utter independence from others, but given this fact of the human condition, it avoids constant panic and fear by allowing for a feeling of security when placed well. According to economists, trust is a social virtue (Fukuyama 1995) that can be linked to other ‘‘soft virtues’’ such as respect for the dignity of persons, peace, human solidarity, quality of life and harmony with nature (p. 8 in Sztompka 1999). They see it as a virtue similar to loyalty that cannot be bought and must therefore be characterised as an externality. It is a good that has significant economic value as it greatly increases efficiency but it cannot be traded in the open market (p. 23 in Arrow 1974).

2 Annette Baier (1986); Richard Holton (1994); Karen Jones (1996) Trust as an affective attitude. In: Ethics, vol. 107, pp. 4–25; Russell Hardin (1996) Trustworthiness. In: Ethics, vol. 107, pp. 26–42; and Lawrence Becker (1996).

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Psychologists and sociologists (pp. 69–91 in Sztompka 1999) usually look at the trustee (Y) and distinguish two categories where trust arises. First, primary trustworthiness relies on personal features of the trustee. Second, derived trustworthiness relies on the context in which the trustee operates. Primary trustworthiness, it is argued, is determined by three factors: reputation, performance and appearance. Considerations of reputation rely on the record of past deeds. Has the trustee previously been loyal, kept promises and looked after my affairs well, for instance? The second category that determines primary trustworthiness is performance. On occasions one might not have access to a record of past deeds. A person might only be an acquaintance on the border of becoming a friend. Or past records might not be suitable for present evaluations of trustworthiness. The fact that a pilot had good eyesight at 25 does not mean that he has good eyesight when he hits middle-age. The last category in establishing primary trustworthiness is appearance and demeanour. Some people look trustworthy, others look suspicious depending on a ‘‘large number of external features: physiognomy, body language, intonation, readiness to smile, hairdo, dress, ornamentation, jewellery’’ (p. 79 in Sztompka 1999) etc. However, we do not only trust people of whom we can judge past and present performance as well as dress-sense and other external features. One might completely disregard appearance, if one deals with derived trustworthiness, the second category, which is independent of immanent traits of the trustee. This type of trustworthiness relies on accountability within given contexts and thereby on sanctioning and monitoring authorities. Lecturers who tell their students utter nonsense would soon find themselves without a job (sanctioning). Electricians who made a habit of attaching cables to rusty waterpipes would find it difficult to achieve certification by standards’ agency (monitoring) and will find that their customers will resort to litigation at their inconvenience. There are certain qualitative differences in the psychology of trust when it moves from the individual to the social group (usually a move from primary to derived trustworthiness). Both types of trust are based on shared values, faith and predictability but while social trust relies mainly on categorical thinking (due to limited information) interpersonal trust relies mainly on personal experience. Referring to both categories, psychologists argue that trust and mistrust are not symmetrical. It is relatively difficult to win someone’s trust and relatively easy to loose it (Slovic 1993). Trust needs a large number of positive instances of trustworthy behaviour to be deep-rooted and a small number of negative instances to be destroyed. This is because overall, trust-destroying (negative) events are more visible and carry greater weight than trust-building (positive) events. In addition, there seems to be a deep-seated human bias towards bad news: sources of trust-destroying (negative) news tend to be seen as more credible than sources of good news. To make things even more difficult, it is evident that distrust produces priming effects, that is initial distrust tends to prime people to interpret new information negatively and therefore reinforces the creation of further distrust. Hence, trust from a psychological and sociological perspective is a mental state that follows a judgement of either context or reputation, performance and appearance with regard to the trustee.

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Trust pervades all areas of life. Without its existence, everyday social life would be impossible as it is ‘‘an essential component of all enduring social relationships’’ (p. 13 in Seligman 1997). It emerges strongly in environments that are highly complex or are perceived to be highly complex. For instance, coping with increased social and technical change in what has been termed ‘‘risk societies’’ (Beck 1992) requires a considerable amount of trust (p. 13 in Sztompka, 1999). In these environments, trust becomes a coping strategy; a way of acting that sidesteps total paralysis. The reason why trust plays such an important role in human lives is because of uncertain futures. If we were in a position to precisely predict all future outcomes of our actions, we would not need to place trust in others (p. 13 in O’Neill 2002). However, facing a future that is not known to us is part of the human condition as there is always a gap between our actions and their intended or unintended results (p. 18 in Sztompka 1999). Whilst we act, the world changes. It changes partly due to natural reasons such as natural disasters, partly because of other people’s actions and partly as a result of our own actions. One does not need to have solipsistic inclinations to realise that all of us miss important information when dealing with others. We cannot ultimately know their motives, intentions or reasons for action. Other people’s minds are opaque to us. To allow us to live in a state of contingency without being ‘‘paralyzed by life’s arbitrariness’’ we need to trust (p. 63 in Earle and Cvetkovich 1995). With this in mind, Piotr Sztompka (p. 25 in 1999) arrives at the following definition of trust: ‘‘trust is a bet about the future contingent actions of others’’. Rather than telling us exactly what trust is, however, this definition tells us why we need to trust, namely because of uncertain futures. Hence, we need trust particularly in highly complex environments (‘‘where’’) and in situations of uncertainty (‘‘when’’). And trusting certainly seems to be surprisingly widespread. Students who keenly scribble down every single idea a lecturer presents seem to trust her to say something relevant. People who lose their way in a foreign city and ask perfect strangers for directions seem to trust without any knowledge of their counterpart. Owners of petrol stations trust their customers to find their way to the cash desk etc. To paraphrase the outcome of this section, trust is a phenomenon which occurs in situations of uncertain futures, helps to achieve social cohesion and economic efficiency whilst overcoming certain aspects of human vulnerability through a mental state that relies on judgements of the trustee fulfilling certain expectations. Placing trust in the food chain shows almost all of the above elements. It is in times of uncertainty that trust needs to be placed. If I have grown strawberries on my deserted African island (without complications such as the use of depleted uranium nearby), I do not need to place trust in anybody before consuming them. Utter mistrust of the food chain could potentially cause major havoc in the economy with malnourishment, fights about farmland and certain products replacing our weekly trip to the supermarket. Although this is unrealistic, we feel increasingly vulnerable as the food chain gets longer and longer and the production of food more technological. But within either a context of accountability or within a setting of primary trustworthiness (buying free-range eggs from the farm next door), it is possible to achieve a feeling of security and well-placed trust.

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4 Trust in functional foods Trust can be allocated to various elements of the food production chain from farmer and producer to retailer. Giving trust is a choice. A consumer may also be self-confident and choose to rely on his/her own judgement, based on direct experience with the food under consideration or based on close scrutiny of available information. It is important that trust is allocated rightly. Giving too much trust to others may lead to negative effects if the trust appears not to be justified. However, giving too little trust to others may also create problems because it gives extra cognitive load to a person or a person may be in a less optimal situation to make a food quality judgement. Some empirical studies especially on GM food underline trust as an important factor of purchase attitudes next to perceived product quality (Bredahl 2001). Our knowledge of trust in relation to functional foods is—unfortunately—still quite limited. There are very few survey studies focusing on functional foods and even fewer that refer to the concept of trust in their analysis. Nevertheless, the importance of the trust variable has been highlighted in some instances. In a study on Belgian consumers’ perceptions of functional foods (Verbeke and Viaene 2001) most respondents (61%) appeared mistrustful of the truthfulness of functional food marketing and gave that as the main reason for not intending to buy functional food products. The same study pointed to the effect of trust in the acceptance of health claims. It found that the majority of respondents (57%) were concerned that insufficiently investigated health claims will be allowed. The issue of trust in health claims is very multifaceted as other studies have shown. For example a focus group study looking at the effect of health claims on people’s level of trust, showed that the existence of health claims tended to increase confidence in the food product and even have a positive effect on the perception of the product’s food qualities such as taste and wholesomeness. It appears then that health claims are a double-edged sword that can swing either way and hence, probably represents the most delicate trust aspect specific to functional foods. Trust in sources of information and regulation is also pivotal to the overall acceptance of food products. For example, a study of Danish consumers’ confidence in food standards found that the high level of confidence was mainly due to trust in the public health authorities that oversee the market rather than food producers (Poulsen 1999). The same study found that medical doctors are considered the most trusted profession to provide advice on functional foods. This is also confirmed by a recent study by the American Dietetics Association, which found that 92% of the population rated medical doctors as a valuable source of information about nutrition although only 11% had actually used them as sources of information (Heasman and Mellentin 2001). Another issue that might prove difficult to resolve are carry-over effects from the debate on genetically modified foods. As lack of trust has been central in this debate, indications are that it will also dominate the issue of those functional foods that are produced by genetic modification. Studies show that up to 47% of survey respondents are concerned that functional foods will contain genetically modified ingredients (Verbeke and Viaene 2001).

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It is clear from the above that public trust will be a key issue in the development of functional food products. What can be done in order to reduce the feeling of vulnerability in consumers and to increase both primary and derived trustworthiness?

5 Achieving and communicating trust The individual determinants of trust provide a basis on which to view practical aspects of trust creation and trust communication. Communicating trust at the interpersonal level is functionally equivalent to communicating risk at the social level. Risk communication is a rather massive and inconclusive area of social research. Perhaps there is too great a complexity in the constellation of influencing variables to offer practical advice, or the area of inquiry is simply too young to reach conclusive remarks. The scarcity of research is evident in that one can only get some glimpses of knowledge. There is nevertheless some information relevant to the subject matter in this paper that can be given. 5.1 Trust in information sources There has been a vivid debate recently about the apparent declining trust in governments, public institutions and official decision making authorities. The trend is definite and widespread, and rarely more pronounced than in the area of food. Most governments suffer from lack of public trust with some interesting exceptions such as The Netherlands. At the same time, pressure groups enjoy unprecedented trust from the general public (Midden et al. 2002). Why is this so? The answer is not straightforward. One possible explanation could be perceptions of vested interest and level of accountability. Frewer et al. (1996) concluded from two studies that reasons for trust and distrust are closely linked to specific information sources in relation to the hazard itself and its risk characteristics. In a follow up survey study on food hazards it was found that trust is primarily linked to perceptions of accuracy, knowledge and concern with public welfare. Distrust appeared to be associated with vested interests and a history of providing erroneous information. The food industry and government were found to score relatively high on vested interest and accountability and low on trustworthiness and knowledge while medical doctors and consumer organisations showed the opposite trend. Further research on the concept of accountability showed that sources with moderate degrees of accountability were more likely to be trusted than those perceived as more ‘‘independent’’. Nevertheless, there seems to be a peak effect where too much accountability could also be associated with distrust; presumably great involvement with an issue is perceived as a sign of greater bias (Frewer et al. 1996). Public authorities are thus not in the best position to win public trust. The high vested interest, evident in the pursuit of economic gains (Parteispendenaffaire), and high accountability, evident in the loss of political support in elections, make public authorities one of the most biased players in social debates. Nations such as The Netherlands which do not appear to follow this trend, require thorough comparison with others to identify possible key differences.

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It would appear that governments are not the ideal creators of trust in food sources. But there is also an interesting hypothesis that measures of trust and distrust in public authorities are only the outcome of conceptual confusions between the concepts of ‘‘trust’’ and ‘‘confidence’’ (Earle et al. 2002). Placing trust is seen as a strictly interpersonal process that is associated solely with people and is therefore not an appropriate measure of social issues involving institutions. The concept of ‘‘confidence’’ is instead suggested as a more appropriate measure, since it refers to objects and future beliefs based on experience. This hypothesis states that the usual wording of survey questions overlays a personal feeling over objective expectations and ultimately produces inaccurate and unreliable measures of trust in governments. This idea goes into the heart of conceptual discussions and it is worth pursuing as it may have important consequences for our measurements of trust. 5.2 Honesty and transparency It is commonly assumed that the more honest and transparent one is, the more trustworthy one is. Nowadays the call for ‘‘transparency’’ permeates all political areas and is slowly producing another unassailable concept in public life. A transparent approach assumes honesty in all aspects of public life whether that includes obvious uncertainties or not. Uncertainty is thus seen as part of the knowledge producing process of modern life that should be communicated. Unfortunately, the link between transparency, uncertainty and trust might not be what is hoped for. Research on communication of uncertainty in risk assessment (Johnson and Slovic 1995) has shown that most people are able to recognise uncertainty when presented in simple terms, and they also take the admittance of uncertainty as a signal for honesty. Nevertheless, their overall placing of trust towards the agency promoting transparency and its competence does not appear to be affected; on the contrary, transparency with regard to uncertainty can be interpreted negatively. Hence, the more honest and transparent the institutional approach in terms of uncertainty, the less competency the public attaches to the institution. The example used in this research was uncertainty with regard to health risks, which also adds to the idea that honesty and transparency in food issues might not be the panacea many hope for. 5.3 Morality Since the times of Aristotle, the role of ‘‘ethos’’ in communication has been recognised as a necessary prerequisite of success in persuasiveness. ‘‘Ethos’’ refers to the moral aspects of the communicator and the communication process; it is a value judgement based on past deeds and current concerns, and provides moral credentials for the cause and proposed solution. Morality is therefore a very powerful aspect in the creation of trust. Research has shown that people tend to organise impressions of others mainly on the dimensions of morality and performance where morality information dominates that of performance (Earle and Cvetkovich 1994). Information on the other person’s morality dominates that of performance and even works as a filter in performance assessment. Perceptions of morality appear to have positive

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influence even when performance is assessed negatively; in other words, people tend to forgive mistakes and keep trust in those who appear to work towards a good cause. 5.4 Levels of debate The levels of trust attained in a given debate could also be due to a basic misunderstanding of the issue in question. People who communicate risks sometimes complain that they are fundamentally ‘‘misunderstood’’ by the public. Misunderstandings can be the result of a certain bias in receiving news, as we see in the example of communicating uncertainty. There, trust levels attached to risk probability are affected by a general bias to look for and believe in bad news more than good news. More often than not though, misunderstandings refer to more fundamental issues relative to the subject rather than simply a problem of technical detail communication. Some researchers distinguish between three main debate levels in risk communication: factual, clinical and world view (Renn and Levine 1991). The first level refers to technical data and scientific findings; scientific jargon and probabilistic/stochastic risk assessment is the main process of communication. The second level refers to institutional arrangements and personal experience; here the debate revolves around issues of vested interests, institutional compatibility and socio-economic consequences. The third level refers to value systems where fundamental agreement on world-views and future direction is the basis for disagreement. The argument resulting from this distinction is straightforward and appealing: failings in communicating risk can represent a basic failing in understanding the issue under consideration. Experts might have a different perception of a given issue than the general public. What appears to be a technical issue in the mind of the communicator, referring to specific scientific facts and experimental results, might be an institutional issue for the public, basically revolving around institutional competencies and fairness. Experts might be blind to the public view of the same issue but also perhaps unable to deal with it. New modes of bottom-up approaches in assessing new technologies (lay panels, public forums, etc.) have helped in clarifying such perceptual differences, although the extent to which they promote an overall societal consensus is still unclear (Liakopoulos 2001).

6 Final remarks The issue of trust in the agro-food sector is probably far more complex than those calling for action would be willing to accept. There is nevertheless an urgent need to act and one should be ready to learn from past mistakes. However, when it comes to practical recommendations one is forced to condense ideas to the point of simplification: 1. It must be clearly understood which level of debate the public is interested in when it comes to functional foods. BSE is once more the perfect example of complete value mismatch between the public and the techno-economic establishment; technical arguments were offered while the public was requesting institutional judgements. The functional food debate will have to

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be defined bottom-up and there should be no ‘‘sacred cows’’ when it comes to specific public demands for information. 2. The challenge of newly created institutes (EFSA in Europe, FSA in UK, Dutch Food and Product Safety Authority) is to provide independence, transparency and holistic risk communication. They clearly represent an official effort to regain public trust in food. Although seemingly created as independent institutes with new standards of transparent decision making procedures and even certain responsibilities for risk communication, it is still uncertain whether they possess adequate means to fulfil their remit and diminish public distrust. Independence from traditional politics is almost certainly not achievable with the present structures and risk communication still follows the misplaced technocratic/probabilistic approach. It could be desirable if these institutes also assumed communication-service roles with in-house research on social aspects and organisation of public-initiated food-related debates. 3. ‘‘Accountability’’ and ‘‘morality’’ are two routes to trust that should be followed parallel to each other. Accountability achieved through regulation and auditing appears to be the best route to confidence-building measures within the technocratic approach. It involves a clear cost benefit approach, elaborate systems of sanctions, and general control-enhancing mechanisms. Morality is the route appropriate for value judgements within political debates; here social virtues such as empathy and commitment are dominant traits. Regaining trust will involve both routes. 4. Public perception research is far from conclusive. The originality of functional food products lies in their health claims. As with other food-related novelties, it is doubtful whether experts and the public understand the claims similarly. It is therefore necessary not only to spend resources trying to ascertain what the public understands by these new products, but also to take the more daring stance of regarding some ‘‘misunderstood’’ information as the status quo and the knowledge basis from which to start the debate. Acknowledgements We would like to thank Professor C.F. Gethmann for comments on an earlier draft.

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