Healthy food marketing and education are growing, but there is still a long way to go

Moderator Adam Platt, a restaurant critic for New York Magazine, said we are living in a “golden age of food consumption” with pickle makers, artisanal cheese makers, and more people are informed about food than ever before. “Delicious food is everywhere, but thanks to the upswell, we also live in a golden age of food hysteria,” said Platt, meaning that we’re more concerned about our food than ever before. His magazine put together a slate of food anxieties noting that if we’re more focused on our food, the more we’re worried about it if it’s infected.

That said, most of the panel looked at the more positive side of the food equation.

Debra Eschmeyer is a farmer of 22 acres in Ohio who started FoodCorps, a movement to get healthy foods into schools. She was also chosen by Michelle Obama to be executive director of her “Let’s Move!” campaign to help raise healthier kids. Because of those efforts, kids have learned more about eating healthy, but more education is needed, she said.

“The average kid gets 3.4 hours in a year for food education. Only 2% of advertising is for fruits and vegetables, so 98% of advertising is everything but. Education has a huge role to play,” she said.

The efforts by the Obamas have helped change minds, habits and legislation. Kids are finally learning where their food comes from, thanks to the garden Michelle Obama planted on the White House lawn.

“We had a first lady who cared deeply about nutrition and made it more accessible to kids,” she stated. “In the last six years, the Obama administration worked to update nutrition labeling with 77% of consumers make a decision based on that label. That process is run by the FDA and Department of Health and Human Services. It took a lot of work to get added sugars on that label…180,000 products at the grocery store have those labels now."

Labeling was a topic also broached by Larry Olmstead, author of Real Food Fake Food about food scams, like not labeling when additives are in our foods, including wood pulp in packaged parmesan cheese, or not giving the source of where the food is from.

“Because we have so little food and nutrition education, we paint everything in very broad strokes,” he said. He advocates people trying to eat the foods as close as they occur naturally, as fresh as possible.

“I worry more about labeling than the foods themselves. There used to be zero food education. Because of that, people look to labels at the supermarket. People cannot be blamed for thinking the products are pure and natural when they’re not,” he added, noting that only with stricter labeling and packaging can consumers truly know the nutrition they are eating. That definitely gets difficult when price is a factor – which it almost always is for families – with pizza joints charging just $8.99 for two pepperoni pizzas.

There is progress, however, with people becoming more educated and losing weight, especially young children.

“The greatest success is with the youngest generation,” said Eschmeyer, who pointed out that with federal support, the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010, kids are growing up under laws that make food safer, including not marketing food to kids in school and having food that meets stricter nutritional standards.

Top Chef host, restaurateur and food advocate Tom Colicchio added: “There’s less sugar in school lunches. Fresh fruit and veggies are mandatory. Vending machines are gone from schools. Good things are happening. Childhood obesity is down. The overall quality of what we’re seeing in this country is better than 30 years ago. People are really starting to think holistically about food and it raises people’s awareness in general. Too much information cannot be a bad thing.”

While more people are food aware, they are eating out more rather than cooking at home.

“What’s missing out of the equation of cooking is the luxury of time. If people started cooking more, we’d have less food waste,” he said, though he added that people are paying more attention to what they’re buying for takeout.

Colicchio and Platt noted that the role of the chef has changed over the years. Chefs were once only in the kitchen, and only the grandest of chefs wrote cookbooks and spoke in public. Now, many of the modern chefs are also philosophers.

“We’re people. We have a lot of different interests…When chefs started plating their food, it brought out their personalities. They became celebrities,” he stated.

When chef-as-celebrity started, it got the conversation started on food and nutrition, but food also became fetishized. Mostly, though, the younger generation wants to know how their food is grown and who is growing it. Food has turned more into an activist movement, said Colicchio.

“Millennials and Gen Z are demanding more information,” added Eschmeyer. There’s a tremendous opportunity to be telling a true story. People want to be healthier; they want to feel better. I’m so excited to be in the better-for-you product business.” She added that food growers and makers can be fact checkers; they can put QR codes or notes on packaging to say they’re proud of their sourcing efforts.

The panel noted that, while changes still need to happen, we are on a more positive food track.

Eschmeyer stated that the Partnership for Healthy America has worked with convenience stores to make more fruits and veggies available at the counter, and a lot of commitment has been made to make healthier food more affordable.

Colicchio added that larger companies are buying up smaller healthy food product companies and brands because they know they have a mandate to make healthier food.

“Communities are demanding higher-quality food, better food. Consumers are asking for it. The government may eventually come around (with more legislation).”

Eschmeyer added that Gen Z and millennials want to be associated with and put their dollars behind healthier food, noting that even celebrities (like Brita by NBA star Steph Curry and Jessica Alba and Cam Newton for a Partnership for a Healthier America) are jumping on the healthy food bandwagon and starting conversations that the panel hopes will grow nationwide.