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Eating a Balanced Life(Link)
What is the Healthy Consumer?
The healthy consumer in America is not the person eating the macrobiotic meal during lunch just before a brisk afternoon walk. The American "health" consumer is the one that struggles to find a happy balance in life between love of food, disdain for exercise, and the desire for a quick fix.
And lucky for them, nutritionists and cookbook authors that are finally receiving well-deserved attention are promoting balance as the key to healthy eating. Bookstores recently experienced a rush on the book YOU on a Diet after Oprah pointed it out as a great diet. It calls on readers to walk 30 minutes a day, build on strength training, and eat a balanced diet that includes grains, fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and fish.
Common sense appears to be on the rise. Fresh, local produce, organic meat and poultry selections, and loads of omega-3 rich fish are critical foods for a well-balanced diet. Carbs are back in the form of whole grains — "Healthy Choices" is the new mantra.
However, consumers tend to attempt managing diets on their own making them more susceptible to fads diets. Among those who diet, 59 percent say they are just "calorie watching or watching what they eat," 11 percent follow a low-carb diet, and 9 percent follow the Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers program.
Eating Healthy Begins at Home
There is a strong correlation between consumers who try to eat healthfully and those who eat dinner at home most nights of the week. Around 75% of shoppers believe that food prepared and eaten at home is healthier. More than 90% prepare one meal from scratch every week, and more than half do so almost daily.
This mindset of healthy food beginning in the home permeates to school lunches too. More and more parents are finding that lunches prepared and bagged at home have a more balanced nutritional content than cafeteria meals.
All of this underscores the powerful impact of family dinner. Habits are learned and nurtured in the home, and regular family dinners can assist parents in getting their kids to eat healthy - a habit that will not only continue into adulthood, but will also assist in better performance in school and avoidance of abusing alchohol, tobacco, or other dangerous, illegal drugs. This choice to eat healthier at home can only have a positive impact on future generations.
Despite Americans desire to eat healthier and laying the foundation to do so by preparing and eating more meals at home as well as buying organic and making healthier choices, many have trouble doing this. It would behoove supermarkets to create and offer solutions rather than just display products.
According to the Whole Foods Organic Trend Tracker, 2005 saw an increase of 67% in sales of certified organic meat, poultry and seafood. This growth can be attributed to Americans' desires to eat healthier. An increase in the consumption of organic foods can be seen as a response, or consequence, of food safety concerns of consumers. With the inundation of so many diets, watching carbs, and issues of obesity, a diet revolving around balance not only makes sense, but will become quite popular.
Is Glycemic the New Low Carb?
While the country isn't going as crazy over the glycemic index as it did over the Low Carb Diet craze, this long-standing dietary guideline is becoming a "new" recommended diet concept. The concept of glycemic index is relatively new to many Americans. Although consumers don't understand glycemic index, they understand its impact on their lives from stress and tiredness for themselves, to crankiness and irritability for their children.
Although the glycemic index (GI) has been around for about 20 years, initially intended as a tool for diabetics, it has been embraced by many food manufacturers since 2003 as a way to give a marketing edge to health or diet products — particularly in the aftermath of the low-carb, Atkins phenomenon.
Some believe that the index is too basic a measure and advocate that glycemic load may be more helpful, since it also considers the amount eaten and the foods' context as part of the overall diet, thereby quantifying the potential glycemic impact of foods. The glycemic load is calculated by multiplying the glycemic index by the grams of carbohydrate in a serving.
One of the drivers behind the trend is undoubtedly Americans' shift toward healthier eating patterns. Awareness of the connection between diet and diabetes is also a factor: according to the American Diabetes Association, 20.8 million children and adults in the United States — 7% of the population — have diabetes (types I and II). Of these, as many as 6.2 million are thought to be unaware that they have the disease.
Another is the availability of products in mainstream stores. When it comes to retail sales, traditional supermarkets account for 65 percent of sales of products labeled as low-glycemic, or a similar reference. Mass merchandisers are the second largest retail sales channel, with 15% share, and drug stores come in third with 12% share. The last is quite significant since, for the most part, consumers do not tend to shop drug stores for food. Yet, these specialty items, which at times border on being classified as medical foods or dietary supplements, are purchased quite often at drug stores. This could be because diabetic consumers picking up their medical supplies see these items nearby and tend to stock up. Health/natural food stores represent 8% share. This number could be higher if such stores stocked more items, as consumers who seek out special dietary foods tend to shop health/natural foods stores. The problem with low-glycemic foods is that quite a number of the ingredients used in their formulation are not considered natural by these stores and are, therefore, banned from sale.
The chief motivation to buy organic foods remains the perceived nutrition value, cited by eight in 10 shoppers, and nearly two-thirds mentioned long-term health effects. Just over half listed the environmental impact of growing or producing these foods.
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