If you haven’t yet heard, the opinions and values of the American consumer are driving agriculture. Read this editorial, and you’ll start to realize how our markets and end-users are changing.
The nation has a serious case of food phobia. Faster than you can say, “Hold the mayo,” food has become America’s great obsession. Folks want to think the food they eat is doing good things for their bodies, whether or not it is. While changing eating habits is hard, many Americans are doing it.
Don’t think the foodmakers and sellers don’t know this. It’s changing the way restaurants operate, with even Denny’s announcing plans this week to nix trans fats. It’s changing the way foodmakers produce and market foods. It’s changing the way the biggest grocers operate, with Wal-Mart becoming an organic kingpin. And it’s changing the way consumers purchase, cook and eat.
Driving much of this: fear. Following years of fixation over 9/11, says Joyce Brothers, the syndicated psychologist, Americans have found a new fixation: food. “We’ve transferred our fears over terrorist acts to fears about food,” says Brothers.