There was a time, not so long ago, when nutritional boundaries were more clear-cut. “Indulgent foods weren’t healthy,” says Mel Festejo, COO, American Key Food Products, Closter, NJ. “They either had a surfeit of nutrients that triggered health issues, or they contained ingredients whose names raised anxiety.”
Yet consumers ate them anyway, seeing as how they satisfied humankind’s most fundamental cravings. Within the last couple decades, however, nutrition’s forward march—not to mention social media’s influence—combined to promote better health through informed food choices, Festejo continues. And consumers began viewing their guilty indulgences with warier eyes.