7A - Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

     The opportunity I've picked is how many labels on foods are convoluted or are described in scientific terms that make it hard to understand whether a type of food is vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, kosher, or have certain allergens in them. For anyone who has a specific diet, it is always a tedious process reading the labels on food and trying to figure out if it meets your dietary standards or not.

The who: Vegetarians, vegans, people with severe allergies, people with lactose or gluten intolerance, and people who eat a kosher diet (or anyone else who has a specific diet that means they need to know what's in their food in an understandable and quick way).

The what: It takes forever to analyze labels with a million ingredients with scientific terms, trying to figure out exactly what is in food and whether or not it can be eaten or not. This also applies to restaurant menus that don't specify what is in dishes or how they are prepared.

The why: Labeling laws from the FDA don't necessarily require restaurants or big food packaging companies to list ingredients in an easy-to-comprehend or immediately identifiable way.

Hypothesis: Food labeling convolutes which ingredients are in food, and people with specific diets waste time analyzing whether or not a specific food item or dish falls under their diet.

Testing the who: People of other religions like Sikhism, or even people with medications that restrict what they can eat

Testing the what: Maybe the problem isn't labeling everything better on each specific item, but maybe the problem is that there aren't more stores or restaurants catering to specific diets. If there were more restaurants or grocery stores that catered to a specific diet or allergy and only sold goods that met that diet's standards, then someone could just walk in and buy whatever food they wanted without having to worry about the ingredients list.

Testing the why: Maybe instead of labeling laws enforced by the FDA, the real root of the problem is average consumers not knowing enough about nutrition to understand the names of the ingredients on the label.

Interviews Summary: Overall, I found that even people without specific food diets hate reading the label and tying to figure out what ingredients are in the product or whether or not the food is healthy or not. People with food allergies also spend a lot of time scanning labels for red flags, and people with religious diets like koshher go to restaurants that are Jewish or get food from their Temple to avoid wasting time trying to figure out if a product is considered part of their diet or not. People who are vegetarian and vegan have the most trouble in restaurants, because if a server does not know if something meets their diet standards or not, then they have to go ask a manager and it becomes a big deal. Also, sometimes a product is made with chicken broth as opposed to vegetable broth, and that's not usually listed as an ingredient on menus.