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New Foods Debut
| Article
# : |
15656 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
2 / 1989 |
1,850 Words |
| Author
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Elyse Levine
Elyse Levine is an instructor in the Nutrition Communications
Program at Boston University. Her articles on health and
nutrition appear regularly in Health Journal. |
Twenty years ago, as we watched the cartoon Jetson family sit down to an instant gourmet supper that had been cooked by a computer, who would have believed that in 1989 three-quarters of American homes would have microwave ovens performing the same trick? Also, advances in packaging and preservation have allowed fresh produce to go anywhere, even on space missions. We've tailored foods to our liking by removing their caffeine, fat, and sugar; enriching and fortifying them with nutrients; and reducing their preparation time to minutes.
In this new year we draw closer to the end of a century, and suddenly, 2001 seems near at hand. Of all the fantastic hopes and dreams for the twenty-first century--world peace and prosperity, controlled environments, settlements in space--predictions about our food supply may be most on target.
Although many yearn for "natural," unprocessed foods, consumer demand for more nutritious, convenient, safe, and tasty victuals keeps prying new products from research laboratories. Lynn Dornblaser, who as general manager of Gorman's New Product News witnessed a record seventy-five hundred new food products introduced in 1987, does not expect consumers to tire of novelty. "Sometimes I think the consumers will eat anything put down in front of them," she muses. Latest figures for 1988 predict that new products will total nearly eighty-five hundred.
The food trends that will continue into the nineties have been labeled "schizophrenic" by industry groups. Consumers demand convenience (witness the surge of microwave products), but will not compromise on freshness or nutrition. Most curious is the "work out/pig
... (1996 of 11428 Characters)
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