As you are quite aware, conversations about food and agriculture are loaded with disagreements, controversies and endless arguments. One of the main reasons fueling this is the one nobody ever hardly mentions. Yet, it is at the core of much of all the excitement. It is something I emphasize in many of my presentations because it can help bring back serenity and especially more empathy. Of course, there are groups on both end of the spectrum that are not interested in mutual understanding. For them, it is all about “my way or the highway”. It keeps people busy, but it is not helpful to prepare for the future.

What does cause the conflicts? You guessed it from the title of this post: definitions. All the conversations -and discussions- always hit the same problem. Not only are we all subjective to some extent, and here are many reasons why we look at the world in different manners, we often end up in such arguments because we assume that we talk about the same thing. That is a big mistake. As the famous joke says: “when you assume you make an ass of you and me”. (If you did not know this quote or do not get it, here is a hint: ass-u-me). What puzzles me is that artificial intelligence seems to show signs of subjectivity and to run on assumptions, too.

When I speak about topics that cause a rift between food producers and the public, I always like to make the audience wonder if they all have the same definition of particular words. I always like to remind professional audiences that, even in the same room, there is a good chance that not everybody has quite the same definition of such words. I am also not shy to tell them that there is a good chance that I do not have the same definition, either. And I conclude by making them aware that the general public, which does not have the technical background, is even more likely to have a totally different idea of what some of those word mean to them.

To illustrate my point, here are a number of examples of words and concepts that about everybody uses or hears countless times on a daily basis, for which the lack of clarity about what they actually mean for those saying or hearing them is a major source of conflict.

Let’s start with an old one: genetically modified organisms, the scary GMOs that used to be referred to as Frankenfoods, as a reference to the story of Dr. Frankenstein (actually, nowadays, the technology closest to that story regarding the use of living tissues to produce food would probably be cellular meat). Of course, the early attempts of inserting genes from fish into tomatoes were cause for concern, but that was a long time ago. Yet, the stigma on GMOs is still very vivid today. The thing is that genetic engineering has substantially evolved since then. Today’s genetic engineering covers a multitude of applications and painting all of the applications with the same brush is rather pointless. If people want to debate about GMOs, they need to be quite specific about which applications they are talking about, and discuss it on a case-by-case basis. Generalising will only lead to arguments and nobody will even be able to understand what the other side is saying. Definitions matter.

Sustainability is another of such concepts that have about as many meanings as there are people. It all depends on what you consider needs to be included in sustainability or not. This is fertile ground for many disappointments and accusations of greenwashing. Sustainability lives in the realm of subjectivity, and attempts to make it more objective is a delicate task. But the term of sustainability seems to have now become less ubiquitous. Probably, this is because another, sexier, term has arisen: regenerative agriculture. It sounds more practical and somehow less abstract, therefore less subject to criticism. Or is it? I ask the question because it seems that a non-negligeable part about the talk of regenerative agriculture is that nobody seems to be able to give a clear definition of the term, that different actors use different aspects of food production to promote themselves, but it seems that nobody can really demonstrate if the claims are really regenerative or not. So, we fall back in the same situation as with sustainability. The truth is in the eye of the beholder.

Another common concept is quality. What is quality? This is a question that I have heard all my life, both as a student and as a food and agriculture professional. Everybody claims to produce quality (I have never heard of anyone bragging that they sold crap). Yet, customers have very different opinions about whether a product is a quality one or not. It is just because quality is a very subjective concept. What some people consider quality, others would consider garbage, and they both might be right. To be able to agree, a definition, based on objective criteria, is an absolute requirement. Yet, this is difficult to put in place.

Among the currently ubiquitous buzzwords, here is another one that needs to be defined properly: ultra processed foods (UPFs). What does it mean exactly? There are attempts to define UPFs, but those are contested. Clearly, there is not even a consensus about how to define them. The problem is that, just like GMOs, foods called UPFs are a very diverse group and it is about impossible to give a definition that applies to all of them. Just like I said about GMOs, these products need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis. Generalizing will lead nowhere, except endless conflicts and arguments. Just for starters, where is even the line between processed and ultra processed? What does make a food product cross that line? There again, it might be possible to define it and assess it on an individual basis. What we really need to focus on is whether a food product is detrimental to health and also under which conditions. How much, how often do people need to eat them to get sick? Is there a problem if you eat it once a year? Once a month? Once a day? Many lines to draw, really.

The same thing can be said for much more mundane products. What is good bread and not? What is good meat and not? What is good cheese and not? What are good strawberries and not? And so on, and so on. Similarly, what does natural really mean? What is authentic?

I mentioned meat. Let’s talk protein! If there is a popular topic these days, that probably would be it. Today, many people, not least in the animal products industries, use the term protein instead of meat. Yet, meat is not just protein. Actually, the main component is water, about 60% of the raw product. Depending on the type of meat and the cut, meat can also contain a substantial amount of fat. Ah, fat, the f-word everybody loves to hate, which is why it is tempting to reduce meat to protein only. The problem with this is that hushing about fat does not make it disappear. But is fat a problem at all? On that point, too, opinions vary. Of course, they vary because it all depends on how much you eat and what the quality of the fat is. The thing is, and I am frustrated time and time over to see that many people in animal productions do not seem to know that the fatty acids profile in the animal product can be influenced by the fatty acids profile of the feed that the animals eat. They are missing a great opportunity. Of course, fat sources in animal feed vary in price and quality. The only industry that really focus on that profile is the salmon farming, and for a simple reason. They have to compete against wild salmon, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids. They have to find feed ingredients that can help match the omega-3 content of wild salmon. If not, it would affect the image of the product.

Since I am talking about fatty acids profile, I should talk about the amino acids profile, and in particular the essential amino acids profile. Protein is popular, but not all proteins are equal. From a nutritional point of view, we need to get enough of all the essential amino acids every day. So, it is not just a matter of having them all, it is also a matter of enough and balance. That, unfortunately, is not always the case. Clearly, a clear definition of protein is important. Some protein sources are of high quality, and some are not. Make sure that you look beyond the word protein to make your choice. To give so extreme examples about what bad or useless protein could be, I would mention hair and finger nails which are made of keratin, a protein, but which have zero nutritional value, so forget about biting your nails as a supplement. The other example would be prions, which are also part of the protein family. The problem with prions is that they are the cause of diseases, the most famous of which is the “mad cow” disease, as well as its human equivalent of the Creutzfeld-Jacob disease.

So, you see, we use many words in a general sense while they often cover many different situations, and if we are not clear about what they mean exactly to us, we end up talking about different things and cannot agree on anything, and as a result we do not really make well=thought decisions. When we skip the definition part of the conversation, we are just debating assumptions and perceptions. It is not a genuine dialog. If you look at it, that is pretty much politics. It certainly is not what we need the most: collaboration.

As you see, if we truly are working on solving problems and building a better future, we need to make sure that we are on the same wave length as early as possible in the conversation. Only then, do we really know what we are debating and when we do that, we can make progress better and faster. And if the outcome is that we should agree to disagree, at least by doing so we do not create bad blood. That, in turn, allows the conversation to resume and to continue. Isn’t it what we need most?

Copyright 2026 – Christophe Pelletier – The Food Futurist – The Happy Future Group Consulting Ltd.