Americans adding healthy foods, not shunning "bad" foods: NPD survey
The latest trend exposed by the NPD Group’s 23rd Annual Report on Eating Patterns in America , is the focus on adding healthful ingredients to diets, rather than limiting food items. The percentage of adults supplementing their diets with beneficial ingredients such as whole grains, fiber, antioxidants and Omega-3 fatty acids has been increasing since 2005. According to NPD, a market research firm, the percentage of consumers trying to eliminate trans-fats, cholesterol, sodium, caffeine, sugar and carbohydrates has declined drastically since the late 1980s and early 1990s.
According to NPD’s report, the number of dieters reporting that they are adhering to a low salt diet has decreased significantly since 2001, when 5.4% indicated they were on a low salt diet. In 2008, only 3.4% of dieters reported adhering to a low salt diet.
Despite the efforts of the “food police” and alarmists who focus on single dietary items rather than whole diets, it appears that an increasing number of Americans are taking a more common sense approach to their overall diets. Bombarded with a constant barrage of mixed messages regarding nutrition perhaps they are getting back to the basics that most of us heard at the dinner table growing up: “Eat your vegetables so you will grow big and strong.” “Don’t eat too many cookies or you will get fat.” Note that our parents didn’t say, “Eat only vegetables” or “Don’t eat ANY cookies”. Yet public policy makers often take extreme approaches that make our parents look like they were complete pushovers.
Ultimately a vast body of data supports what our parents told us. We should eat a well balanced diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, low-fat dairy and lean meats. There is not one magic ingredient in our diets to make us healthy and there is not one “poison pill”. Or as my grandmother would say, “All things in moderation.”
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