Small Changes: Thoughts on Wellness 09 Conference
Eat more soup. Have some almonds. My two biggest personal take-aways from a few days at IFT’s Wellness 09 conference.
Beginning with the Center for Disease Control’s overview of America’s dietary habits (with a state-by-state map demonstrating the uptick in obesity rates from the 1980s’, replete with some of the most unattractive food photography I’ve ever seen) to the sad knowledge, courtesy of NPD Market Research, that America still feeds itself the same five basic meals for dinner in 2008 as we did twenty years ago.
Whenever I attend a show like this—a great peek into the minds of nutritionists and food scientists—I come away with the resolution that today’s the day I start my macrobiotic diet. But then, I’m prone to making sweeping, large-scale changes. Or at least prone to thinking that I will.
Which brings me to the mantra expressed over and over again at the conference: “Small Changes.” The powers that be in the food nutrition world have pretty much given up on (for good reason) the concept that the American consumer will ever kick our terrible eating habits, even with the strongest of intentions. But it took a “Joint Task Force of the American Society for Nutrition, Institute of Food Technologists and International Food Information Council” to draw this conclusion?
To help, food ingredient and food manufacturers are getting sneaky. Putting really great stuff into the foods we eat every day. Like adding more fiber into food products from noodles to gummy candy. You know, what your mom used to do with broccoli. What a fabulous opportunity this is for ingredient companies and food manufacturers to partner up to slim us down!
The government’s even in on it. Setting aside myriad examples of culpability on their part (remembering the food pyramid), they’re now nearing their collective wit’s end about the overall societal costs of our “expanding” population. The conference wrapped up by touching on some of the regulatory changes coming fast that will impact food marketers. Many of which call for honesty on the part of food companies, and food service providers, regarding responsible portion sizes and ingredient transparency.
So if you’re a food or ingredient marketer, the time to get in front of this is now. Because you’re going to be outed.
As we’ve talked about in this blog, and as we advise our clients, the consumer is increasingly in control. And with the help of sources like nutritiondata.com and nuval.com, you can’t party like its 1999 anymore.
So while consumers learn to make “small changes,” for those food companies that continue along their merry old way, big changes are in store.
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