Covertly Cleaning Up.

The big bad food company, it's a phrase most of us have heard whether we are familiar with food and nutrition or not. Many people assume that food companies are hiding things from consumers. Their objective may still be to increase the money that lines their pockets, but what they’re hiding may not be what you think.

While reading the winter issue of the ADA times, a publication from the American Dietetic Association, I read about the food trends predicted for 2011. Mintel, a London based market research firm, predicted that companies will reduce sodium, added sugar and fat from their products without advertising the changes. I immediately had two questions:

1. Why would companies start making healthful changes now?

2. Why aren’t they advertising the reductions?

According to Dr. Douglas Balentine, Director of Nutrition Sciences from Unilever, the newly released Dietary Guidelines for Americans are more effective than we thought. Maybe the public doesn’t fully grasp the concepts, but industry has taken notice and taken action. Dr. Richard Black from Kraft spoke in another class of mine and said, “Consumer interest in health and wellness is growing.” Companies are reformulating products to be healthier to meet the growing demand from the public.

So why aren’t these companies using the healthful changes to sell more products?

I had the pleasure to attend a seminar in which Ed Frechette, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Au bon pan, spoke about covertly making their products healthier. “People don’t buy something if you tell them it’s healthy. As soon as you put the badge of ‘healthy’ on something it wouldn’t sell.”
Here is a video of the seminar.

I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth when it comes to believing certain things that food companies say. Although, I feel a little better knowing they are trying. Food companies may be sneaky, but in this case it is in the best of ways.

Who Gets to Hold the Salt Shaker?

In 1963, The American Heart Association realized February held a unique opportunity to spread awareness, in a month already filled with images of hearts, by establishing this month as American Heart Month.  Salt reduction is one of the major recommendations regarding heart health that we hear over and over because of its link to hypertension, stroke and cardiovascular disease.

The average American exceeds the maximum recommended sodium intake of 2,300mg or 1 teaspoon per day. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans released on Monday (by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) urge consumers to further reduce daily sodium to 1,500 mg for children, people who currently have hypertension, and those over the age of 51.

So how will a country that has developed it’s palate for high amounts of sodium put down the saltshaker? The Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a set of recommendations last April that proposes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) take regulatory action in gradually reducing sodium throughout the food supply. Why get the government involved? Although putting away the saltshaker will benefit you, the majority of the average American’s sodium intake comes from prepared or processed foods that do not necessarily taste salty.

Should the FDA take action? I am usually a firm believer that American consumers are responsible for their own wellness as long as the information needed is readily available. The majority of the U.S. population knows that sodium negatively impacts its health. The problem lies in the public’s time for and ability to read nutrition facts labels. If the FDA does step in and do what the IOM perceives to be the government’s part in the sodium crisis, a consumer can always pull out their saltshaker and add it back. 

2010 Dietary Guidelines are here!

As a Registered Dietitian, I am excited to announce that the 2010 U.S. Dietary Guidelines were released today. Check them out here!