Food for Thought

"I'm on a diet."  At some point we've all either heard or said this to one of our friends.  Our culture is constantly striving to be fit and attractive.  More recently, consumers want not only to look fit and attractive, but they also want the food they consume to help them become healthier on the inside.  This is not as simple as "good" or "bad" foods.  It can be broken down in to numerous categories. Some of these current health fads include:

• Organic/all-natural
• Low calorie
• Low-fat
• Low-carb
• Good carbs vs bad carbs
• Gluten Free
• Non-GMO
• Paleo Diet

The average consumer forms their opinions about nutrition based on what they hear from the media or from chatter with friends and family (who probably also learned from the media).  The beliefs on nutrition are constantly changing and there is a multitude of different theories on what is good and bad.  If you ask people if egg yokes are healthy, one might confidently say they're filled with harmful cholesterol, and the other may rave about how beneficial the omego-3s are.  Unless a consumer is a registered dietician or has really done their research, they are taking an educated guess on if a food product is healthy.  Based on this, marketers have massive amounts of power and influence.  Unfortunately, marketers many times take advantage of this consumer ignorance, and claim products to be much healthier than they actually are.  Just printing any of the fads listed above on a package tricks many into believing products are a good choice.  I have even seen "FAT-FREE" printed on a bag of granulated sugar. Wow.

There are plenty of industries where consumers are uninformed and vulnerable to convincing marketing tactics. Although unfortunate, its reality.  Marketers in the food industry must constantly be aware of what consumers are looking for out of their food, and their job is communicate how their company's product can meet that need.