Food Facts, Not Fear: Helping Canadians Navigate Nutrition Misinformation 

Canadian Food Focus is helping Canadians look beyond alarming food and nutrition claims with Food Facts, Not Fear, a short-form reel series hosted by registered dietitian and professional home economist Erin MacGregor. The series equips viewers with practical ways to recognize the persuasion tactics behind misinformation before they share, act on or worry about a claim. 

Food and nutrition misinformation often spreads not because it is well supported by evidence, but because it uses techniques that feel persuasive: fear-based wording, emotional stories, oversimplified choices, selective evidence and claims that information is being hidden. Instead of attempting to correct every viral post or food controversy one at a time, CFF is teaching Canadians a more durable skill: recognizing how misinformation works. 

Understanding Misinformation Tactics Playlist

A Repeatable Consumer Skill 

The Food Facts, Not Fear reels responds to a growing need for accessible, credible nutrition information on social media. Canadians increasingly encounter health, food-safety and ingredient claims while scrolling, often without enough context to judge whether a post reflects sound evidence. 

The monthly series focuses on one misinformation tactic per episode. Rather than criticizing an individual creator or repeating a specific false claim, each reel gives viewers a clear explanation and a simple question they can apply the next time they encounter similar content. 

Topics released to date include: 

• Emotional appeal, which explains why fear or anxiety can make a food claim feel more convincing than it is. 
• The appeal to nature fallacy, which challenges the assumption that “natural” always means safer or better. 
• Chemophobia, which shows why words such as “toxins” and “chemicals” can create concern without providing meaningful information about dose or exposure. 
• Cherry-picking, which explains how isolated studies or statistics can be used to support a narrative while ignoring the wider body of research. 

Future episodes will address conspiracy framing and correlation versus causation, helping audiences identify additional tactics that can distort food and nutrition conversations. 

Built for Social Media 

Each 60- to 120-second reel follows a consistent learning structure: a familiar claim or pattern, a plain-language definition of the tactic, a short example, a “pause and check” question and a clear call to action. 

For example, the cherry-picking episode encourages viewers to ask: Is this creator presenting the full, peer-reviewed picture, or selecting evidence that supports a preferred story or product? This approach turns passive viewing into a practical habit of evaluating information. 

The videos use vertical, mobile-first production, high-contrast on-screen text, captions, clear episode numbering and a recognizable CFF end card. Erin’s consistent on-camera presence makes complex ideas approachable while maintaining a credible, conversational tone. 

Early Results 

From March through August 2026, CFF published four Food Facts, Not Fear episodes, with additional content in production. The series reached 46,000 accounts and generated almost 59,000 video plays, while each episode achieved a “stayed to watch” rate of at least 70 percent, exceeding the campaign objective of 50 percent. 

The series generated 2,288 total engagements. During the four-month campaign period, CFF’s Instagram following increased by 7 percent and its TikTok following rose by 48 percent. 

The strongest-performing episode, Understanding Misinformation Tactics: Emotional Appeal, generated more than 15,000 organic Instagram views. Seventy-five percent of those views came from non-followers, demonstrating the series’ ability to reach Canadians beyond CFF’s existing audience. More than 60 percent of viewers interacted with that video. 

Audience feedback also points to meaningful learning. CFF documented 150 comments or direct inquiries expressing appreciation, demonstrating understanding or seeking further information, including comments such as, “Much appreciated how you break things down,” and “We need more information like this.” 

Why It Matters 

The Food Facts, Not Fear reels have a scalable approach to building food literacy and public trust. It helps Canadians develop the confidence to pause, assess a claim and seek credible information before making decisions or sharing content with others. 

We are very pleased that the series was shortlisted for a Best of CAMA Award from the Canadian Agri-food Marketers Alliance. This recognition reinforces the value of investing in practical, consumer-centred communication that helps Canadians make confident food choices based on evidence rather than fear.