Yogurt Named Food of Decade

Good old Harry Balzer. He's certainly consistent. How many people can you say that about in a positive sense in this day and age.

Balzer was the subject of one of the first posts I ever did on this blog, Yogurt Changed the Way We Eat. I wrote:

Harry Balzer knows more about the way you eat than anyone in America. His title is nothing special, vice president at the NPD Group. His job is. He studies Americans and food. Every day. ...

Every day, someone from the NPD Group is calling 3500 Americans, asking them whether they're gone to a restaurant, and if so, what they ate. The number one food ordered by women? French fries. Burgers are number two, pizza, number three. Salad comes in seventh. Men eat burgers, French fries, pizza in that order.

And NPD hands out notebooks to 3000 families at a time so that the can record everything they eat and drink for 14 days.

Then NPD combines the info and sells it for big bucks in their unique study, Eating Patterns in America, now in its 20th year. ...

And yogurt? Well, in Balzer's 28 years in the business, he's only named a "food of the day" that's changed America's eating patterns twice. The first was pizza, and now the second is yogurt.

Almost four years later, Balzer is still on the food patrol. And he's still touting yogurt. In an interview with NPR, Balzer named yogurt the food of the decade.

MICHELLE NORRIS: So was there one specific thing that defined the American diet over the last decade?

Dr. BALZER: Well, if there is one that defines this decade it would have to be yogurt.

NORRIS: Yogurt?

Dr. BALZER: Yogurt would be the category or the food that has increased in our dietary habits more than any other food during the past 10 years.

NORRIS: Color me surprised.

Dr. BALZER: And it probably, if you think about your own behavior, I'll bet you start your day off a lot with yogurt or have it during lunchtime, or maybe have it as a dessert or a side dish or as a snack, more than you did probably 10 years ago.

NORRIS: That's true.

Dr. BALZER: It's one of those things that kind of sneaks up on you, but yet I think defines what Americans are really looking for from its food supply.

NORRIS: Well, now, is it because yogurt is something that's healthy or because it's convenient or because it now comes in all kinds of forms?

Dr. BALZER: Yes.

NORRIS: It's not just in tubs. It's in tubes.

(Soundbite of laughter)

NORRIS: It's frozen. It's...

Dr. BALZER: Say yes to all of those. It's very convenient. It's very individualized. You don't get a bunch of yogurt like you get a pizza pie and celebrate with everybody else. This is just for you. It's your own flavor. It has a health halo certainly surrounding it. It really does define what I think America wants from its food supply.

And if you really want to know what the top food will be in 2020, Balzer can tell you. And you'll be more surprised than by the yogurt.

DR. BALZER: I will tell you the number one food that we will eat in the year 2020 will be a ham sandwich. And I know that because I've been doing this for 30 years and I was hard pressed in 1980 to be asked what we'll be eating in 1990. When I discovered that the ham sandwich was the number one thing we ate in 1980, and I made a prediction that we'd be eating it in 1990. And guess what we ate in 1990 - a ham sandwich. What do you think it was in 2000 - a ham sandwich. 2010? A ham sandwich.

So do I have to go out on a limb to tell you that the number one food we'll be eating in this country in the year 2020 will be a ham sandwich? What I don't know is what will be the bread. There will be something new about the ingredients or the condiments that go on this. But when I ask you, what did you have? You'll say, oh, I had a ham sandwich.

Let's hope it's on dairy-free bread.

The Simple Food Movement

Michael Pollen, the author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, has a number of rules, or rules of thumb, that he suggests people who want good, healthy food should follow.

One of them suggests suggests "avoiding products with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce."

Those extra ingredients are the ones normally found in processed food, which is pretty much every food that is found in a can, box, or container. The ones that fill up all the aisles in all the supermarkets of the world. Ingredients you can't pronounce may be emulsifiers, or stabilizers, or preservatives. Although sometimes they are vitamins or probiotics or good old fashioned sodium bicarbonate.

Pollen is not one of the crazies who runs around screaming that "chemicals" are in our foods. As sodium bicarbonate proves, everything, even familiar ingredients found in every kitchen, is a chemical and a chemical name doesn't mean something dangerous or scary. Pollen is an enemy of large agribusiness practices and of the fast food lifestyle Americans practice.

He has followers. As Janet Helm reported in the Chicago Tribune, corporations, ever sensitive to trends and fads, are jumping on the "Simple" bandwagon, featuring foods like:

Five, the new line of Haagen-Dazs ice cream that's made with only five ingredients -- including well-known kitchen staples (milk, cream, sugar and eggs). Then, Pillsbury introduced Simply cookies that are based on a similar premise: "Made just like you would make at home, same ingredients, same process."

Many food companies are scrambling to simplify ingredient lists and find naturally sourced alternatives to create what has been dubbed a "clean label." And when they do, they proudly declare "no artificial flavors, colors or preservatives" on the front of the package. That has become one of the most popular claims made by new foods and beverages, according to the market research firm Mintel.

I'm torn on the issue. I don't care about the trendy foods. They won't last. Literally so. Foods without preservatives spoil faster, have to be made in smaller batches, cost more, and can't sit for months on kitchen shelves. That's why companies started putting preservatives into foods in the first place. I absolutely guarantee that they'll be doing so next year after this trend has passed.

The larger trend that includes the "locavore" movement - eating foods grown locally - as well as fresh foods, more fruits and vegetables, and whole grain foods will likely take hold of a segment of the market. There's not much to complain about here. I've been eating locally raised organic meats, for example, and they are far tastier than the normal supermarket varieties, even though they are available at supermarkets as well from farm markets.

How do local farms, small bakeries, and specialty marketeers manage to feed the 300,000,000 people in this country? They don't. They can't. Programs have been started in Detroit and New York to get fresh produce into inner cities, areas in which supermarkets and groceries have smaller and more expensive selections than anything suburbanites will see at their worst stores. These worthy efforts aren't more than a dent in the larger problem. The people most in need have the least opportunity. The Simple movement will be adopted most enthusiastically by the well-to-do. Just what we need. Another large wedge between classes.

Of far more importance to our small community is the simple fact that creating dairy-free and other specialty items for people who avoid some of the commonest "simple" ingredients in our cooking lexicon is almost impossible to do with just a few ingredients. Getting similar taste, texture, and "mouthfeel" requires a set of ingredients to imitate the originals. Those ingredients probably include emulsifiers and thickeners. And because they are made in small batches with the full expectation that they won't fly off the shelves like Oreos or Spam, they need the preservatives to keep them from rotting in the package.

The Simple movement doesn't address our special needs. Adding more free fruit and vegetables to our diets may be sound advice but "well-known kitchen staples" like milk, cream, and eggs aren't found in all our kitchens. Unless we plan to cook and bake every item we eat, we will rely on packaged foods and those packaged foods will not be Simple.

Don't eat just Simple. Eat Smart. Smart is what is right and best for you. Smart always wins.