Big Food is moving to healthier food

Thank goodness and long overdue!

From The Way We Eat Now:

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The food industry itself has begun to make certain investments in the direction of healthier eating. "In the future, I see a convergence between food and health," says Goldberg. "The food industry has been warned of the backlash that could hit them, like it did tobacco." He suggests that the food industry will become more responsive to consumers' health concerns regarding issues like bioengineered ingredients in foodstuffs. People "want a diversity of sources for their food, and traceability of sources," he says. "The bar code will become a vehicle not just for pricing, but for describing and listing ingredients."

Even fast-food chains are changing; in the past year, they reported a 16 percent growth in servings of main-dish salads. Willet sees no reason why healthy eating should not be as delicious and attractive as junk food, and the franchisers may be headed that way as well. McDonald's is currently testing an adult meal that includes a pedometer and "Step With It" booklet along with any entrée salad. In its kids' meals, Wendy's is trying out fruit cups with melon slices instead of French fries. Yogurt manufacturer Stonyfield Farm has launched a chain of healthful fast-food restaurants called O'Naturals. And Dun Gifford has an answer for parents who say, "My kids won't eat anything but Doritos." A mother he knows puts out an after-school snack platter of sliced apples, grapes, raisins, nuts, and tangerine sections. "The kids don't complain at all," he says. "Or even notice."

Dun Gifford tosses a tomato amid Mediterranean staples like pasta and olive oil—which his Oldways Foundation recommends for healthy eating—at Formaggio Kitchen, a specialty food store in Cambridge.

Doritos themselves are getting healthier. Fitness expert Kenneth Cooper, M.P.H. '62, founder of the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas, has been working with PepsiCo's CEO, Steven S. Reinemund, to develop new products and modify existing items in a healthier direction. The company's Frito-Lay unit last year eliminated trans fats from its salty offerings. Frito-Lay introduced organic, healthier versions of Doritos and Cheetos under the Natural sub-brand. "As a result, 55 million pounds of trans fats will be removed from the American diet over the next 12 months," Cooper says. "It cost $37 million to retool—and it was done without a price increase. PepsiCo is in 150 countries, and many of their healthier products will soon be promoted throughout the world. Physical fitness is good business for the individual and for the corporation."

PepsiCo sells plenty of food and beverages from vending machines, many of them in schools. "You don't resolve the obesity problem in children by taking the vending machines out of schools," Cooper declares. "Kids will still get what they want. Put better products in the machines and get physical education back in the schools." Accordingly, PepsiCo is stocking some school machines with fruit juices from its Tropicana and Dole brands, Gatorade, and Aquafina bottled water; others offer Frito-Lay products that meet Cooper's "Class I" standard: no trans fats and restricted amounts of calories, fat, saturated fat, and sodium.

Parents need to create and enforce some Class I standards of their own. "We have got to stop being afraid of our children, and tell them what to eat," said Washington Post writer Judith Weinraub at the 2003 Oldways conference. Steven Gortmaker, too, has some simple counsel for parents. First, limit children's television viewing; the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than two hours daily. Second, no TV in the room where the kids sleep. "Sixty percent of American children—including 25 percent of those between birth and age two—have televisions in their bedrooms, and they average an extra daily hour of viewing there," says Gortmaker. "Parents don't control that viewing."

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