@DaYummyTruth Blogs

Bringing Food to the Front Page

May 5, 2022

Does food and nutrition media reach your timeline? If so, what does that look like? As journalists we feel that there is an influx of personas and influencers online that have oversaturated food and nutrition media to guilt, confuse and spark fear in consumers for the benefits of sponsorships and mass followings. Food and nutrition is not a beat in most newsrooms and food literacy is not commonly taught in American public schools, thus leaving space for exploitation at this intersection of information. With inspiration from PolitiFact and the work of other professionals (doctors, food engineers, dietitians) who use their personal pages to educate users on food misinformation, we hope to bridge the gap between journalism and food/nutrition education by operating a social media page that records this intersection of information. 

Our goal is to run a fact-based Twitter page that documents and participates in the never-ending conversations regarding food and nutrition. We hope to curate educational food and nutrition posts that: provide links to evidence-based resources, highlight credible professional pages, practice misinformation debunking and simultaneously entertain viewers. Our starting mission is to curate enough posts to form a digital archive that will boost food and media literacy. This page will be run by two graduating UT Journalism students who have a strong connection with food, nutrition, education, and navigating digital media. 

We recognize that the current state of the project is very much at a functioning launch, but moving forward we hope to really solidify our presence with a creative, consistent style, plan outward collaboration with other professionals in this space, research Twitter’s API to make searching easier,  be funnier,  build a following with an engaged audience and get journalists to discuss food and nutrition more often. Overall, we hope to simultaneously boost food and media literacy for people to make wiser consumption choices with confidence. 

Analysis of the Project

Throughout the project, we noticed that there are more food and nutrition social media influencers than we realized. A majority of influencers present their knowledge of nutrition through photos and videos, so it is challenging for the audience to search for certain keywords because there is no documentation. Also, most influencers do not provide a supporting link or credible evidence. Making healthy consumption choices is important to a wide range of ages and our project targets everyone who nourishes themselves. As an approachable, text-based digital archive we hope to connect users with links to scientific evidence and accessible articles. 

Explanation of Project

Mainly, our project is a handy, online guide for factual and accessible food and nutrition information and a tool to navigate misinformation on the same topic. Our product guides the audience to make healthy consumption choices, understand nutrition basics (in tune with nutrition academia), debunk food misinformation, and correct misconceptions. All of this information will be supported by scientific evidence (links and media) within the post. Since our product is a digital archive focused on word documentation, the audience will have access to the supplemental resources and can search any of their preferred information with a keyword. Although Twitter search is a little tricky, just typing “username: a keyword” in the search will get you what you were likely looking for. With this, users will be able to easily consume correct information about their desired food or ingredient and its nutritional information. Also, for any posts with debunked misinfo, there will be transparent methods for avoiding misninfo (ex. Lack of evidence). Therefore, the audience will have every piece of information in a single post to boost their food and media literacy. 

Three things we learned:

1. Limited factual food and nutrition content in social media

The majority of people do not have access to reliable food and nutrition information. There are limited resources for a collection of food and nutrition content with credible sources. Specifically, most social media accounts do not have documentation of corrected misinformation with words. Instead, they provide more visual information with photos or videos but it is challenging to search keywords for certain types of food or nutrition if the information is not provided with words. 

People are interested in making healthy consumption choices and debunking misinformation. However, due to the limited sources of digital archives, it is challenging for the audience to analyze and consume credible information. Therefore, our product provides content with a supporting link of credible resources, a list of social influencers who provides scientific-based evidence as they debunk misinformation, and a collection of documentation allowing keyword searches.

2. Receiving feedback

We learned that conducting multiple focus group sessions is important. It allows us to receive feedback from the target audience and distinguish certain types of information we need to post on our social media. We can analyze the audience’s preferences and distinguish their needs. Then, we can expand our content information (ex: seasonal information - diet habits during summer, trending food and nutrition topics, etc.)

3. Collecting supporting resources and expanding our product

We saw that there are countless credible food and nutrition websites and organizations. Also, there are plenty of scientific reports that are accessible to the public. However, every resource and website can be accessed by searching individually on search engines. For example, olive oil scientific report by UC Davis. Therefore, we learned that the audience should have organized documentation of food and nutrition information with supporting evidence on a single social media page. Then, the audience does not have to search for supplemental information on search engines because they will have access to the information and the supporting evidence in a single Twitter post. An example is shown below.

We saw a need of expanding our product network by marketing our Twitter page to UT journalists. First, we will start expanding by reaching out to UT undergrad journalists and expand further. Most local journalists report local news such as politics, events, and much more, but there is no specific content regarding food and nutrition misinformation. Therefore, we can expand the journalism and our product’s network by engaging with the journalists. 


 

The intersection of food, nutrition, and media literacy

March 31, 2022

To preface our digital solution to a modern problem, it must be acknowledged that there is an information disorder in online spaces and media literacy in the US is almost non-existent. The issue of misguided media consumption is a threat to proper consumption choices and can persuade people to conceive unhealthy realities, worsening at the intersection of nutrition and food literacy. Food and nutrition media online is oversaturated by influencers on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. Influencers create contents without providing scientific evidence and their followers believe the misinformation. This can be seen with a food influencer and a YouTuber, FlavCity, who has 3.2 million subscribers and reaches 100K to millions of views in each content.

With this in mind, we want to propose an opposing force to the food/nutrition information disorder and operate a Twitter page, @DaYummyTruth,  to correct food and nutrition misinformation with factual and credible evidence from previous scientific reports and interviews from nutrition professors regarding the respective topics. To specify one of FlavCity’s contents, the influencer published a video saying that olive oils purchased from local grocery stores are fake olive oils. Throughout the video, he states that he has evidence that 70% of olive oils sold at local grocery stores are fake from a University of California, Davis report. However, the North American Olive Oil Association published a debunking post correcting FlavCity’s false claims, saying that the samples from the report are driven from certain samples of California and, “should not be used to characterize the quality or authenticity of olive oil currently available in California or elsewhere.”

FlavCity claims that we are buying fake olive oils with false information and no scientific evidence to support his claims.

The major issue of this food misinformation is that FlavCity’s followers are influenced by his false claims and because he stated that he received the information by a UC Davis report even though he didn’t provide the link. 

One of the comments from the published video that his follower posted.

It’s important to recognize that scientifically, contrary to the field of Journalism, any claims made without evidence do not need to be corrected or rebutted with evidence. It is up to the person making the claims, ex. “MSG is bad for you”, to provide evidence as to why the ingredients they are slandering are harmful. The scientific method is different from reporting because the truth lies within the repeated studies and tests performed by professionals on a particular subject. Fortunately, we hope to always provide credible sources through trusted links and scientific articles, but our credibility will lie primarily on our consistency with food science and nutrition academics. We rely on science through websites like Examine.com, compoundchem.com and academic materials from University of Texas Nutrition professors. We mention this because science is standard and there are no “other sides” like Journalistic reporting usually offers. @DaYummyTruth will be interacting with professionals and misinformed influencers to understand the motives behind this intersection of information, but we won’t validate or entertain claims that are evidenceless and contrary to food science and nutrition.

To envision this better, we want to create a strong digital archive of correcting false claims with credible sources of scientific reports and in an engaging manner. We believe this media platform will impact all ages. Our target audiences are adult students who try to nourish themselves, parents who aim to have a healthy diet for their families, individuals who want to practice healthy diets, individuals who are interested in fitness and well-being, and individuals who are misguided and aim to have stronger food media literacy. We hope to challenge those who do spread misinformation and garner truth behind their motives and credibility through interviews with them and professionals. With DaYummyTruth we will create a strong and reliable digital archive for food and nutrition, eventually growing into multiple social media platforms to target more audiences.


 

A fun Politifact equivalent for food and nutrition information

February 18, 2022

To preface our digital solution to a modern problem, it must be acknowledged that there is an information disorder in online spaces and media literacy education in the US is almost non-existent. The issue of misguided media consumption is a threat to decision making and can persuade people to conceive unhealthy realities and act on it, worsening at the intersection of nutrition and food literacy. Food and nutrition media online is oversaturated by influencers on Instagram, home-life personalities on TikTok and Facebook, and people outwardly posing as professionals, creating information overload and taking advantage of users who want to learn to properly nourish themselves and their loved ones. This can be seen with inflammatory claims that difficult-to-pronounce ingredients are harmful or stigmatizing diet campaigns that claim ingredients are not “natural” or “clean”. 

With this in mind, we want to propose an opposing force to the food/nutrition information disorder and operate a Twitter page - as a start - to curate food content that is factual and credible and debunk misinformation regarding the respective topics. To envision this better, we want to equate ourselves as the Politifact of food and nutrition information - Da Yummy Truth (working  name) - and create a strong presence online as a reliable digital archive of information to boost food literacy and media literacy simultaneously. In the same vein as Politifact, we want to address food and nutrition information and help people process it with transparent research skills, educational yet creative visuals and credible sources. To creatively innovate this space as information curators, we also take inspiration from FoodScienceBabe, a food scientist who debunks food misinformation on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok through humor, memes and scientific reasoning. The methods FoodScienceBabe applies to her content helps boost energy and morale - her followers are constantly tagging her in videos and excited for her to debunk them with scientific explanations - and we want this intersection of fun with food/nutrition/media literacy to revolutionize people’s relationship with consumption and make wiser decisions.

We believe this solution would impact all ages, but we place focus on the everyday adult - adult students who might be new to nourishing themselves, parents who aim to nourish their families properly, and any health-conscious individual who wants to improve their diet or image - who can be misguided online by people who claim credibility and success in food, nutrition and fitness. We hope that our solution will help people form a stronger consciousness in their consumption and create a ripple effect in the spaces and conversations they occupy.  Although cliche, the saying “teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime” applies to our project and our goal to empower people to handle information skillfully and nourish themselves without guilt or fear. 

In essence, we hope that using this Twitter page to kickstart our solution will inspire people to explore the realm of food and nutrition with confidence and awareness. Although we focus on digital problems, this could help people realize a multitude of issues in our institutions, such as the disparity in food access across the US, the lack of food and food justice coverage in local media, and how education can impact decision making. But in the meanwhile, we hope to operate as a strong, reliable and positive force for food and nutrition media online, eventually evolving into multiple digital spaces that will make our archive as accessible as possible through multiple mediums.

 

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