The Whole Food—and Nothing But

While the meaning of terms like “balanced” and “whole” is up for grabs, there’s no denying that those descriptors—and that catchall “natural”—resonate with consumers.

We’re starting to see the big picture when it comes to eating right—that nutritional health doesn’t lie in a specific nutrient or phytochemical, but in a diet where all the elements work together. As Rafaella Marie Fenn, president and managing director, National Peanut Board, Atlanta, says, consumers “want foods that are good for them, but more in the sense of providing well-being, as opposed to promising that this is going to fix or cure this or that. We have a sense of social responsibility. We want our food to be very close to what it was as nature gave it to us, as opposed to something that has been piled on with 55 other things that you can’t pronounce.”

To a society—and a food industry—that spent much of the last 50 years chasing after every “space-aged” advance that came along, such a shift in priorities represents one heck of a pendulum swing. But it might be a refreshingly salutary one if it gets us to eat closer to the ground. “We’re technologically driven,” says Wendy Bazilian, Dr.P.H., R.D., a nutrition educator and author of “The SuperFoodsRx Diet” who consults with industry organizations like the Cherry Marketing Institute, Lansing, MI. “We’re an industrious society. And we went through a phase in the 20th century where we went from the farm to the convenience of supermarkets and shelf-stable foods, thinking that high technology was the way to go.” Now, she notes, consumers are returning to the understanding that there’s synergy going on in the whole food. “They are trying to limit, if not altogether eliminate, as many artificials as they can.... They’re trying to look for what’s more authentic and natural,” she says.

For more information, see Fruit and Nut Snacks for the 21st Century