From the Sublime to the Ridiculous - a Bit of a Rant...
From the Sublime to the Ridiculous — a Bit of a Rant…
A friend of mine pointed out that the Fancy Food Show is rather elitist. After all, families with limited income are unlikely to shell out big dollars for esoteric food products and often aren’t in a position to afford the organic or natural products. I counter with the argument that a lot of specialty foods exhibited at the recent show in New York are only specialty when viewed from a present-day American point of view. Many of them are, in fact, just part of the regular food mix on their home turf or in the eclectic neighborhoods throughout our country.
It’s also true that we’ve seen many
specialty products transition gracefully into American mainstream diets.
There was no pasta 25 years ago — unless, of course, you were
fortunate enough to be part of an Italian family or live in that
neighborhood; and iceberg lettuce was the only lettuce you could find apart
from in the major cities and perhaps on the farms. And then there’s
the change and diversity in bread and the cuts of meat and the vegetables
… There’s no shortage of variety and interesting foods
available to the mainstream shopper these days.
And, of course, you have to love the entrepreneurs who
make the yogurts, the goat cheese, the jams, jellies, baked good and
confections that give you the opportunity to delight your taste buds and at
the same time wonder how they came up with the idea. A visitor to the Fancy
Food Show mentioned to me that he was delighted with the show and had
thoroughly enjoyed visiting, exploring, seeing and tasting, and at the same
time felt that “there are solutions being presented here to problems
that I don’t think even exist.” I don’t really think
it’s about solutions to problems, but rather about exploring
opportunities and finding a niche.
Now for the ridiculous …
Then we move on to the somewhat ridiculous: the item at
Kentucky Fried Chicken called the KFC Bowl, at around 720 calories for the
serving, and then Pizza Hut’s P’Zone, with between 600 and 700
calories for half of one. These are, of course, geared to young males, who
generally don’t worry much about calories, but I did find the
emphasis on the “one pound of filling” a little off-putting.
Then again, I don’t think I’m the target consumer! Fast food
companies know their audience and have done a good job in the main part in
offering items on their menus that meet the needs of many different
customers. However, the emphasis on large servings or an even bigger bag of
French fries still predominates and seems to be getting stronger again,
judging from the TV commercials.
Confectionery is fortunately no longer the “bad
guy” in the food world. Dark chocolate has helped a great deal,
thanks to the increased awareness and good PR efforts on the part of
manufacturers. And we seem to have come full circle with the knowledge that
balance and moderation really are the answer.
It seems to me that the confectionery and snack
industries should be part of promoting wellness and a positive relationship
with food — all foods. We should work even harder to stop making food
the enemy and stop using war words as weapons when dealing with lifestyle
and behavior issues where eating becomes the perceived solution. The
emphasis on “winning the war on obesity,” is an example of what
I mean. Let’s stop the “bad food” movement. And if you
hear a nutritionist giving a presentation about “disgusting
foods” — yes, it really happened; it was the well-known speaker
Zonya Foco, and donuts and Froot Loops were included — step up and
say something in response. It may be all in fun, but it’s really not
funny.
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