Episode 64: Food Marketing: Trends, Issues, and the Madness with Lauren Link

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Episode Description

In this episode of The Up-Beet Dietitians podcast, Emily and Hannah are joined by sports dietitian and Purdue alum, Lauren Link. Lauren dives into her popular social media series: Marketing Madness. She breaks down what it is, the negative impacts of misleading marketing, and how listeners can shop smart. Be sure to tune to learn how to spot marketing madness and hear about the most outrageous #marketingmadness products Lauren’s come across!

Lauren Link is a Registered Dietitian and Board Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics. She is the director of sports nutrition at Purdue University, where she played women’s soccer and was part of the 2007 Big Ten Tournament championship team. As an undergrad, she completed a dual degree in Dietetics and Nutrition, Fitness and Health, and later completed her Masters from Purdue in Health and Kinesiology.

Lauren began her professional career as a clinical dietitian with St. Vincent's Hospital before returning to her alma mater in 2014 as the program’s first full-time sports dietitian. As the director of sports nutrition at Purdue she oversees all sports nutrition operations and staff, and works directly with football, men’s basketball, soccer and volleyball. Outside of her work at Purdue, she also sits on the Board of Directors for the Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietitians Association and is currently the Vice President. In 2017 she published her first book, The Healthy Former Athlete.

Follow Lauren on social media @linktonutrition !

Participant #1:
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Upbeat Dietitians podcast. Today we are joined by Lauren Link. Who? Emily and I worked under at Purdue. She is a registered dietitian in Burr Ford certified specialist in sports. I couldn't believe that in just to make everyone laugh, she is the director of sports nutrition at Purdue University, where Emily and I went to school. And when Lauren was there as a student, she played women's soccer and was part of the 2007 big Ten tournament championship team. As an undergrad, she completed a dual degree in dietetics and nutrition, fitness, and health, and later completed her Masters from Purdue in health and kinesiology. Lauren began her professional career as a clinical dietitian with St. Vincent's hospital before returning to her alma mater in 2014 as the program's first full time sports digitian. As the director of sports nutrition at Purdue, she oversees all sports nutrition operations and staff and works directly with football, men's basketball, soccer, and volleyball. Outside of her work at Purdue, she also sits on the board of directors for the collegiate and professional sports dieticians association and is currently the vice president. In 2017, she published her first book, the Healthy Former Athlete. We're so excited to share this episode with you, and we hope you enjoy. Enjoy. Lauren, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. We are so good to see you guys again. Yes, you too. We are so glad to have you on. So today we want to go into something Lauren always talks about on social media called marketing madness, and we'll get into where you come up with that idea, what it is and all that in a second. But we like to first have our guests walk us through, like, a day in the life, what you're doing for work, education, hobbies, all that fun stuff. So give it to us, if you will. All right. So, I mean, a day in the life of a sports dietitian is a little bit crazy, and no day is really the same. So I am currently the assistant athletic director for sports nutrition at Purdue University, and I oversee our staff of sports dieticians, which is about to be five of us total, and our jobs entail lots of different things, basically anything pertaining to nutrition for our athletes, we're kind of leading that charge. So lots of one on one counseling, and that can be about lots of stuff. Some of it is performance related, like hydration or fueling. Some of it is medical nutrition therapy. We have athletes with diabetes. We have athletes with GI issues with food allergies, you name it. So lots of medical nutrition therapy. We would meet with our athletes about body composition. We have a DEXA machine. I don't know how many listeners are dietetic folks, so maybe people don't care about what a Dex is, but anyway, we do lots of food service, so we have fueling stations which are kind of like snack bars on crack or something. Dining hall for our athletes. We do menu planning. We travel with the athletes. We're on the sideline at games, we're at practices. Depending on what team it is and how in depth our support might be, just depending on the needs of that sport. Some are a little needier than others. So all that to say, any day in the life is just going to be some combination mismatch of those things. That's a lot of fun and it takes a lot of hours for sure. So we work a lot of hours, but I feel like I have pretty good work life balance and time for hobbies. I mean, you mentioned like hobbies and things. I have a eleven month old daughter who's pretty freaking cute and so I like to spend time with her. My husband and I like to travel. We like craft beer and food. I feel like kind of your standard foodie stuff. I don't know if that hit everything, but that's my nutshell answer. Thank you. Definitely knocked them all out very well. But yeah, Hannah and I actually worked under Lauren for a little bit, so we had the pleasure of watching your chaotic life and seeing the snack bars on crack. Yes. And you guys were an integral part of making those functions. Our students are the best. We could not do it without our students. Cool. So let's give the audience, though, kind of why they're here today. And I feel like there's a social media term, like CEO of I would call you the CEO of Marketing Madness and breaking down nutrition misinformation around all those flashy food labels and whatnot. So kind of walk our listeners through what exactly is Marketing Madness and then what was your inspiration behind it? I don't even know. Hannah and I have followed you online for so long, but I don't know if either of us were really aware of your first Marketing Madness post. So kind of walk us through that entire process. Sure. So, for one, I'm totally taking the CEO title and running with that. The first time I used Marketing Madness, it was not in any attempt to make my big thing. I was kind of just stuck on like I didn't have a lot of great ideas for content. And I was walking to the grocery store and I'm pretty positive and saying my first ever one was like a Bougie lunchable. I can't even remember what brand it is, but I just remember looking at it and thinking, really? That looks kind of like a normal lunchable. But it was matte cardboard and they're natural looking and it has words like natural, and I don't know what else was on there, but I remember thinking, like, okay, I roll. That's ridiculous. So I picked it up. I picked it up in the store, and I looked at that compared to a normal lunchable, and they were, like, basically the same. And it just struck me as like, oh, my gosh, there's so many moms probably walking around the store paying 150%, 200% more for this bougie looking lunchable and thinking that like, oh, wow, I'm so healthy, and my kids getting this premium product and really it's the same and it's all marketing. So that was kind of my unplanned launch into marketing madness. And at first, again, I didn't really think it would be like, a whole big thing, but Ben was trying to kind of look. Now my eyes are peeled a little bit. I was like, okay, what else is out there? And then I found, like, oh, my God, it's literally everything. Like, every stupid thing in the store is wildly marketed, and there's no regulation around it either, which we know as dietitians. And I include a little bit about that piece of stuff in my book. So I had done a little bit of work with that in the past, and it just all kind of came back to light for me. I was just like, oh, my gosh. Like, all these words mean nothing, but that's why people are buying them and they're paying more for nothing else, or certainly not anything notable. So, yeah, so that's how it started. And I think you asked me to say what it is, which we've probably kind of alluded to, but essentially just calling out companies and our products for using misleading marketing, whether it's word, whether it's claims. And there are rules around what you can claim a product does or doesn't do, but outside of a few rules, there are not many. So there's nothing regulating terms like all natural and even some things like cage free and whatever. I'm doing a terrible job thinking of examples. Farm raised, mom approved, doctor approved, no regulations around that, and people notice that stuff. So, anyway, it's my attempt at trying to bring some light to those topics and just point out how similar a lot of those things are to their kind of peasant counterpart and or just how full of shit they are. And to clarify, this is, like, mostly food products, too. Like, supplements are a whole other ball game where there's even less regulation. So if you can imagine foods have this much confusion around them, imagine supplements being their own other, like, wild, wild west. But yeah, anyway, Emily and I always joke about how the most seemingly silly things we post about are often the ones that get the most views and attention. Take us into the CEO status upset topic. Like, right now, I'd say on TikTok, on the CEO of Watermelon, it's like, my thing right now for the dumbest reason. Like, the most dumb video I put the least amount of work into went viral and now it's like, oh, I'm talking about so it's just so funny how social media works. But thank you for sharing all that. I always love hearing the becoming of how you became the CEO of Marketing Madness. So I think we touched on this, but any other thoughts on, like, the big negative impacts of all this misleading marketing on our groceries and or supplements are mostly groceries, as we're kind of talking about food mostly today. Yeah. So I do want to acknowledge what you said about supplements. Like, oh my gosh, that could be a whole thing in itself. And if food is sketchy, and food's not that sketchy inherently, but marketing around it is, but yet supplements are like time 1000, but food specifically, I would say some of it's like, pretty harmless. You could argue, what's the big deal? Because it is still food. So at least unlike supplements, we're not concerned that it maybe has scary ingredients in it or that there's not enough of an efficacious dose or something like that. But I think the harm is a couple of things. One, especially right now, while food is freaking expensive, I mean, food insecurity is real, as we all know, and dietitians, I think especially know that and the work that we do. But the fact that people are paying more for a largely similar product is kind of messed up. And if you're paying for that, you can probably afford it. But I think probably people spend some money on products that they don't really need to under the guise that it's better. Especially, I think I mentioned moms and their kids. I think that's an especially kind of messed up scenario. Now, as a mom myself, there's just like so much mom guilt and stress around those kinds of choices. And often I just want to tell all the moms, like, you're doing fine and your child is fine. He or she does not need the XYZ special fancy, expensive brand when you can't afford it, necessarily. So I think that's one thing, it's messed up to be spending more money on these things that you don't necessarily need or that it's not doing what it says it's doing for you. And then the other piece, I think, is just kind of like building off that stress. Again, we know because we see clients and patients every day, stress around the food is enormous for so many pretty ridiculous reasons. And so the last thing we need is more stress, more anxiety, more second guessing. And actually, too, I mean, like, nutritionally, I can't necessarily think of an example off the top of my head, but definitely it's influencing our nutrition choices, not just from a cost standpoint, but it's influencing maybe how much of a nutrient we're getting. And that could be negative in some sense. Again, I could think of an example if I took long enough, but off the top of my head, I can't think of an exact. But for sure there are choices being made every day because of marketing, because of those flashy colors or words or whatever you're seeing or the person they're using advertising it that are impacting what choices you're making, for better or for worse. And I think a lot of it is for worse. Yes. I feel like food is just such a constant conversation everywhere you go, whether it's like a social event or family gathering or whatnot. And then there's so much stigma around it and also so much comparison with how you eat and what not. I was having a conversation with a couple of coworkers the other day, and they were like, ranting about the added sugar component and like, yogurt or something and how the food industry is brainwashing us. And I was just so I was like, we've got bigger issues here in the world. It's not that big of a deal. It's okay. But it was crazy to me, kind of like just even a professional setting where it's like a health care professional setting, things like this were happening. And I'm like, then you go into the grocery store and there's just so much there. And for anyone who has just like, bare minimum education around nutrition, it can be so overwhelming. And you can feel like you very easily influenced because they don't know that terms aren't regulated on labels. And you kind of see what someone's advertising on social media or you see what other people are doing and you're like, should I be guilty about what I'm choosing? This one seems healthier, but it's more expensive. That's out of my budget. It's just there's so much that goes into it. I feel like that stress component is huge. So me feel stressed so much about food that is not great. And I think like an example that's coming to mind, to me, for listeners, we said a few different things, but one instance is that food companies love buzzwords. And so there are so many examples right now of plant based. And anything that they can, they flat plant based, on, which we know there's a lot of gray area around what plant based exactly means. So they love putting plant based on things that are literally a plant. So, yes, it is plant based because it's a plant. Okay, rice. Oh, your rice is plant based. Oh, fantastic. Like, every rice is plant based. Nongmo slapping, non GMO on things that can't be genetically modified. The example I remember specifically was salt. And salt is a mineral. It's not a living organism that cannot be genetically modified. And that's just one. But they do that all the time. They slap these labels on. So people gravitate towards that and they choose those. And there's nothing different about that product. It's not better, it's not superior. But they don't know that. Have you guys seen the TikTok or the real? It's food science babe who shout out to her, she's amazing. Love her. She's amazing. What does she say? She's like, there aren't any OS to M GMOs organisms to modify. I just thought of that. But yeah, GMO is the big one. I always talk about that one. It's just so silly. I saw a TikTok yesterday, two days ago, whatever. Going back to the whole price point thing, it was all about gut health because gut health is a big thing right now. We got to support our gut and have a happy gut. And these gut health experts, which is not a real title, are telling us what foods to eat. And she was getting alternatives. They were like the heavier quotes, if you're listening, not watching. Heavier quotes on the good versus bad, like Coke. So it was like Coke versus the Ollie pop. It was rich crackers versus some other cracker that had no seed oils in it. And then a dietitian stitched it and was like, oh, shocker. Every alternative that she suggests is, like, way more expensive, which is almost always the case. And likely your gut hop is going to be fine. If you do enjoy rice crackers and Coke here and there, it's going to be okay, right? Yeah. So we've talked about labels and kind of how many of them are out there and how there's not really a lot of regulation around them, but what kind of tips do you have for listeners if they do want to shop smarter and might not be, like, fooled as easily by the marketing madness out there? And kind of how can they navigate, I guess, like labels or looking at labels interpreting them from a food standpoint? We also knock supplements on there, but I feel like that's a whole nother question as well. So we'll start with food. How can they kind of navigate that? Yeah, that's a good question. So there are a handful of labels that are regulated by the FDA, not very many compared to the labels that are out there total. So I guess I would say it depends on your nutrition goals, of course. And so ideally, you're working with a dietitian who can chime in on this too. But I know that that's not necessarily realistic or accessible for everybody, but let's say you were trying to eat a little bit lower calorie or lower fat or something like that. Those sorts of labels, if it says low calorie, if it says low fat or low fat, those are accurate. Those are labels that have you have to meet a certain criteria to use those labels on your product. I'm not saying that everybody should go look for low calorie or low fat things, but if it matched your nutrition goals, that could be something you could trust, I suppose, is what I mean. There and then past that, I guess a few tips I give people. One would just be to look past a lot of those words for one, not the ones I just gave you, but the sum that we said earlier, right? Like natural and science proven or like I said, mom approved, doctor approved. There's probably not even a comprehensive list out there. But I would just recommend look past some of those words. Look past the colors and the packaging and things like that. And another thing you can trust is the Nutrition Facts label that is regulated by the FDA. So if you're looking for something that has protein, I would encourage you to just flip it over and look at the protein. Because that's another really good example, actually, that I haven't mentioned, is things love slapping protein on them and like absurd foods. I've definitely used a couple of examples like protein peanut butter or protein cream cheese. Most of the time those products have a little bit more protein than their counterpart. Like protein peanut butter has 8 grams instead of six or seven, like the normal one. And so is that worth the extra like $3? No, it's not. So I would say if you have nutrition goals and you're labeled savvy enough to kind of be looking for some of those things, look at the Nutrition Facts label, do the math, look at the serving size and figure out, like, is that realistic? Could I get a good amount of protein from that and go with that? Whether it's carbs that you're looking for, whole grains that you're looking for protein. Like I said, maybe you're looking to do a little bit less added sugar. And I hate to demonize sugar because love me some sugar. And I tell my athletes, like, we need carbs, we all need carbs, and sugar are part of those carbs. But it's a fair goal that maybe you are trying to limit some added sugar in your diet. If that's the goal of yours. You can look at that like that's on the nutrition label. So those are just some examples of things you can trust and look for and maybe that matches your goal. And I would honestly just ignore a lot of the rest. Like, don't look at the packaging, don't look at those words. Like I said, the colors. I would just be like, really skeptical of those sorts of buzzwords claims, etc. On the front of a package. And I tell people all the time. There are a few examples. I think we all probably have a handful of name brands that we buy because, I don't know, we've been brainwashed into thinking they taste different. But for the vast majority of products, the store brand is the same. In fact, in many cases, it's the exact same if you look at the ingredients and the label. So if budget is something that you're considering, like a lot of people are, consider that pick, maybe splurge on those couple of things that you think tastes different. And the rest of the things like go with the store brand, go with the cheaper brand, go with the bulk. I'm a big bulk fan and I don't have any visual way to show it on here. But that's another thing you can look for at the store. On the price tag, you can actually find on the bottom left or right corner. Usually it'll say like price per unit or price per ounce or something like that. And you can compare and pick the cheaper one. So I feel like I'm rambling a little bit, but I'm just trying to kind of visualize. If I was going through the store, those are some things I would look for versus disregard in terms of labeling around food. That's great advice. It definitely depends on the person and what their goals are, first of all. And then it's not helpful to completely disregard nutrition and the label and what's on there. But a lot of it doesn't matter. And so it's just knowing what actually matters. Like you said, if your goals are to limit added sugar, that's going to be on there. You can find objectively how much added sugars in that product. But if it says on the front of the label maybe like keto doesn't automatically mean it's going to be the best thing ever for you, for sure. And I guess two, I would add maybe one last consideration is do you like it? People buy crap they don't like or that they're not even really going to eat, but they buy it because they feel like they should, or they get enticed by that marketing and what a waste. You should buy food you like and that you're actually going to eat. If not, what's the point? So that should be a consideration too. That's huge. Well, one final question on this whole marketing Madness topic. I think I have a post of yours in my mind that might be one of my favorites. But in your opinion, what is the most outrageous hashtag marketing madness product that you have reviewed today? If you had to pick one? I get asked this here and there, and it's hard because they're all so stupid. But in my mind, I have two that comes to mind, and I'll be interested if it's the one that you have, but one is the fast bar. So this is a granola bar that you eat to stay fasting. Literally, the entire premise goes against its purpose because you cannot stay fasting if you eat food. Not that you should be fasting in the first place. That's a whole other thing. You don't need to be fasting, but if you are, you certainly can't eat a granola bar. And it had a very balanced macronutrient profile, like it has carbs, protein and fat. I'm unsure what about this would possibly make somebody think that they're fasting. I think I said in the post, unless you open it and it puts you to sleep, and you sleep for a few hours, and that's why you stay fasting. I can't imagine what else about the package would keep you fasting. So that's one and then the other, because you said keto in my brain, a Keto mayo, which made me lol in the store when I saw it, because if anyone's unaware, keto sorry, mayo is keto inherently, because it is pretty much 100% fat, which falls right in line with Keto recommendation. And again, you don't need to be in Keto either, but if you are, you could use any mayo. You wouldn't have to buy Keto mayo. So those are a couple of examples that come to mind for me, but they're also dumb. They're also dumb. I was going to say Keto mayo. That's what I was thinking of. I forgot about the fasted bar thing. That's hilarious. So we always, like, ending our episodes with kind of if you had to provide any final thoughts on all things marketing madness and leave our listeners with some final thoughts. Exactly that. And we always joke that they would only listen to this portion of the episode. What would you want them to take away?
Participant #1:
I think I would say I kind of feel like I'm tempted to say what I just said a few minutes ago, which was, like, ultimately, you should buy food that you like and that you'll eat, and that is nourishing. And I know that can be easier said than done with all the misinformation that we all process daily. But I think maybe it goes back to. Like. We've all seen the memes or whatever floating around that are essentially saying the anxiety and stress caused by all the food misinformation out there is far worse for your body than any one or two or three or four foods could ever be. Is just so true. Stress is so bad for your body in so many ways. So to stress about food in this way, it's just so silly. So, yeah, I just would encourage people to choose food based on what you need, what meets your budget, and what will nourish you in a really literal sense and maybe to an emotional sense here and there as well. So I know that's not, like, building off that's kind of building off what I already said, but I think that's, like, my big drive home point. If I could. That's great. I can see the Canva graphic already. Yeah. Cool. All right, well, let's get into the final part of the episode. A bonus question. So we like to always end the episode with a fun little debate, and today we're bringing it back to your sports Rd roots. Lauren. So our bonus question today is, and we let you go first as the guest, what is the best sports drinks flavor? And maybe a part two to this I didn't add in the draft is what is the best for strength, like Brand, like Gatorade, Power, Aid, all that. Yes, I'm a Gatorade girl through and through, so that's for sure my go to Brand. And I'm probably going to say riptide rush. It's the light purple, but I have to throw in an asterisk that lemon lime. Like the OG lemon lime is pretty real as well. And actually when I was pregnant, I did not have really like many cravings, like crazy cravings, but I did have a solid, probably a week and a half where I drank in a third amount of lemon lime Gatorade. And it just happened naturally. I was at work and of course we're surrounded by Gatorade at work. And I had worked out and I never get Gatorade after I work out. I'm like a pretty casual exerciser these days, so unless it's like really hot or something, I don't usually go Gatorade. But I did. I fill up my cuff like a little bit with lemon lime gatorade, and I was like, oh, my God, that's delicious. And then I fill up again, like a little bit and a little bit more, and this is a big cup. And so then I filled it all the way up. It was like, for sure, like 20 to 32oz. So in that hour after I finished, I drank like 64oz of lemon lime. But it was like I was chugging it. I was just like, oh, my God, this is so good. And then it lasted like a week. I went home and I was like, told my husband, you have to go get me some lemon lime Gatorade. And then I don't know, like, after a week, it's kind of just over. And since then I haven't drink that much. But I feel like that ties down to my roots. Like, somewhere deep down, obviously I love me some lemon lime. That is amazing. Stereotypical sports rd pregnancy crazy. So true. That's awesome. Well, I was going to say lemon lime too. I think that just deserves so much love. It's an amazing flavor. Like, there's a reason why that's been around probably since the very beginning of Gatorade. It's so refreshing. Yeah, that's what you want when you're an athlete who like is needing hydration, is refreshment. Exactly. They couldn't have gotten better from there. My favorite is I don't know the name, but it's the light blue flavor. I think it's Glacier freeze. That sounds right. Yeah. I associate that with, like, being sick for you. I don't know. Every time, I was like I was like, okay, Gatorade. And it was always that one. Hannah, I'm surprised you had one answer. I know. I don't think I'm very passionate about Gatorade. I like it a lot, but if I'm passionate, that's when I have multiple answers and I can't choose. But this one was okay. Having one firm decision. Also, I wanted to be like Lauren. I get that. Cool. So Lauren, if people want to. Hear more from you. And they also want to learn and stay up to date on the marketing madness world. Where can they find you? Like any social media, you can really promote whatever you'd like at this point. So where can they find you? You can find me. My handle is at link to nutrition. I'm mostly on Instagram and Twitter. I dabble on Facebook for like, my mom mostly, so I'm on that link to nutrition. And I also have a book. The Healthy Former Athlete. If there's any former athletes listening who are struggling with transitioning into what I call normal human hood, you could check that book out. It's on Amazon. Barnes and Noble, Target, I think, all have it online, but Amazon, I think, is kind of the main hub and it's also an ebook, so if that's interesting to anybody struggling with that transition, you can check that out too. Well, we will be sure to share all the links to all those things below so you guys can find them. Lauren, thank you so much for coming on today. It's going to be a great episode. We've not really discussed label reading much at all. This will be a really good one. But again, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. All right, everyone, thanks for tuning in to this episode. We will see you next week. Bye, guys.