|
Americans’ mid-1990s push to cut dietary fat is apparent in the recent per capita food supply data, which show a modest (8 percent) decline in the use of added fats and oils between 1993 and 1997, from 69 pounds (fat-content basis) per person to just under 64 pounds. As a result of consumer concerns about fat and mandatory nutrition labeling beginning in July 1994, food processors introduced over 5,400 lower fat versions of foods in U.S. supermarkets in 1995—97, according to New Product News, a trade magazine based in Albuquerque, NM.
But the decline in average consumption of added fats was short lived. Between 1997 and 2000, per capita consumption of added fats jumped 17 percent, from 64 pounds per person to 74.5 pounds. Fat plays an important role in enhancing the flavor of foods. Many consumers found the taste of the new low fat (3 grams of fat or less per serving) and fat-free versions of foods unacceptable. Accordingly, many companies reformulated their low-fat and fat-free products in the late 1990s, adding some fat to improve taste. Some consumers, who rejected the low-fat and fat-free versions, have accepted reduced-fat products (1/3 less fat than full-fat versions). Many other consumers have resumed eating full-fat versions. According to a 2000 Roper Reports survey of a nationally representative sample of 2,000 Americans 18 or older, the percentage of Americans who say they are eating "pretty much whatever they want" was at an all-time high of 70 percent in 2000, up from 58 percent in 1997.
Although Americans apparently have relaxed their efforts to curb consumption of added fats, they are choosing to eat healthier fats. Olive oil and canola oil–high in heart-healthy mono unsaturated fats that lower blood levels of bad cholesterol but not good cholesterol–captured 23 percent of the salad and cooking oil market in 2000, up from less than 4 percent in 1985.
Average use of added fats and oils in 2000 was 67 percent above annual average use in the 1950s. Added fats include those used directly by consumers, such as butter on bread, as well as shortenings and oils used in commercially prepared cookies, pastries, and fried foods. All fats naturally present in foods, such as in milk and meat, are excluded.
Americans in 2000 consumed, on average, three-and-three-fifths times more salad and cooking oil than they did annually in the 1950s, and more than twice as much shortening. Average use of table spreads declined by 25 percent during the same period.
In the 1950s, the fats and oils group (composed of added fats and oils) contributed the most fat to the food supply (41 percent), followed by the meat, poultry, and fish group (32 percent). By 1999, the fats and oils group’s contribution to total fat had jumped 12 percentage points to 53 percent, probably due to the higher consumption of fried foods in food service outlets, the increase in consumption of high-fat snack foods, and the increased use of salad dressings. Margarine, salad dressings and mayonnaise, cakes and other sweet baked goods, and oils continue to appear in the top 10 foods for fat contribution, according to recent USDA food intake surveys, which indicates the ongoing prevalence of discretionary fats in Americans’ diets.
In the last two decades, Americans have been more successful in reducing the fat density in home foods than in away-from-home foods, according to food intake surveys. In 1977—78, both home and away-from-home foods provided slightly more than 41 percent of their calories from fat. By 1987-88, the fat density of home foods had declined to 36.4 percent of total calories from fat, compared with 38.7 for away-from-home foods. Since then, the fat density of home foods declined steadily to 31.5 percent of calories from fat, but fat from away-from-home foods declined only slightly to 37.6 percent of calories.
|