It Was 40 Years Ago Today... It Was 40 Years Ago Today... It BYWas DAVID SCHARDT 40 Years Ago Today... In 1971, when the Center for Science in the Public Interest—the non- profit consumer-advocacy group that publishes Nutrition Action Health- letter—hung out its shingle in Washington D.C., the food world looked very different from what it is today. Within a few years, Foods like tofu, whole wheat bread, and brown rice were hard to come sales had by. People made their own yogurt, smoothies, and granola. Salads were tripled. In mostly iceberg lettuce, milk was mostly whole, and coffee was either 2010, the black or with cream and sugar. We cooked more and snacked less. We industry ate less and weighed less. sold more than $25 billion worth of supplements in Here’s a brief stroll down memory lane to remember how much things vitamin shops, supermarkets, drug stores, and on-line. have changed.

Zahra Hassanali helped compile the information for this article. Supermarkets Expand

In 1971, a typical supermarket carried just under 8,000 lnariz/fotolia.com. e portions, has made eating out items. In Everyone one of the main culprits in the 2009, it was alarming rise in obesity. more than Gets a 48,000. At many uvien/fotolia.com, © uvien/fotolia.com, K Microwave ’s supermar- In 1971, fewer than Legacy Lingers kets, you one out of every can pick up 100 U.S. households McDonald’s Big Mac was four dinner at the owned a microwave oven. Today, only years old in 1971. The company invented cooked-food bar, grab some Kalamatas at five out of 100 don’t. Still, microwaves are it to compete with a large two- ham- the olive bar, cash a check at the in-store oman Sigaev/fotolia.com, © Sigaev/fotolia.com, oman only used to make about 20 percent of all burger sold by rival Big Boy. R

bank branch, and fill a prescription at the meals that are prepared at home. While Today, the Big Mac in-store pharmacy. that’s double what it was 25 years ago, the doesn’t seem so big. Its In 1988, Walmart intro- stove top remains the most popular appli- 540 calories are dwarfed duced its first Supercenter, ance for cooking dinner. by, among others, Burger which put groceries and King’s (670 countless other merchandise calories), McDonald’s under one roof. Fourteen Eating Out Becomes In Angus burgers (750 years later, the company to 790 calories), and irley Hirst/fotolia.com, lyzadanger, © lyzadanger, Hirst/fotolia.com, irley In the early 1970s, Americans spent a third became the nation’s largest Sh of their food dollars on meals prepared Wendy’s Deluxe grocer. outside the home. Today, eating out eats Triple (1,150 calories). up half of our food money. We’re Eating More Food While convenient, the shift has left its Dietary Supplement mark on the national waistline. Food pre- ...and More Calories pared away from home typically has more Sales Explode calories In 1970, there (and so- In 1994, Congress passed landmark were 1,675 dium). That, legislation giving companies a free hand pounds of food coupled to make claims about a staggering variety available for with ever- of nutrients, herbs, hormones, and other every person chemicals, without needing much, if any, in the United

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restaurant evidence. States to eat. Photos: © Museum, Schenectady left) upper from clockwise

10 NUTRITION ACTION HEALTHLETTER ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011 SPECIAL FEATURE

It Was 40 Years Ago Today... In 2003, it was up to 1,950 pounds. That means an extra 500 calories a day was Imported Foods Soar Food Advertising Swamps being produced for every man, woman, It Was 40 Years Ago Today... In the early 1970s, imported food typically and child. The increase in available food Eat-Healthy Messages meant something like a jar of Spanish is more than enough to account for our olives, a bottle of In 2008, McDonald’s spent It Was 40 Years Ago Today... steadily rising weight. $1.2 billion on advertising in Italian olive oil, or a What are we eating more of? Just about bar of Swiss choco- the United States. That’s 12 times everything, though fats and oils (200 more late. And, of course, as much as it spent in the 1970s. calories a day), grains (190 more calories), bananas from Cen- And Coca-Cola spends 13 times and sugars (75 more calories) lead the way. tral America. Today, more than it did back then. it could be anything In 1972, total domestic food, bev- Nutrition Facts Labels from fresh mozzarel- erage, and restaurant advertising la from Italy to frozen peas from China. was $2.5 billion. In 2004, it hit Ride to the Rescue The average American eats roughly 260 $11 billion. pounds of imported food every year. Im- For every $1 spent on ads that urge us If you read a typical food label in 1971, ports account for close to 15 percent of our to eat at least five fruits and vegetables you wouldn’t have had a clue how many diet. They bring us peaches and cherries a day, the food and beverage industries calories or how much fat or sodium was in the winter and fresh salmon all year spend $1,100 enticing us to buy fast-food in each serving. round. About a quarter of our fruit, half of meals, soft Shopping for healthy foods got a whole our nuts, and more than two-thirds of our drinks, sugary lot easier with the introduction of the fish and shellfish come from overseas. breakfast cere- onamakela.com/fotolia.com. m

“Nutrition Facts” label on food packages But the ability to eat whatever we want als, and a host in 1993. Today, whenever we want has its downside. The of other foods two out of Food and Drug Administration, which that have led three shoppers oversees roughly 80 percent of the food to massive say that they supply, inspects only about 1 percent of waist sprawl. use the labels to

ila Eames/fotolia.com, © Eames/fotolia.com, ila the food that enters the United States. help figure out She

what to buy. Trans Fat Plummets Obesity Rates Spin In the 1970s, consumers began replacing Organic Foods Go their Crisco and other vegetable short- Out of Control ening with soybean, olive, and other unnyS/fotolia.com, © unnyS/fotolia.com,

S vegetable oils. At the same time, restau- Mainstream In 2008, when the producers of “Taking Woodstock” began casting for their movie rants, potato chippers, bakers, and other By 1971, Rachel Carson’s book Silent dramatizing the food manufacturers started using Spring, which exposed 1969 concert, their more—not less—shortening. the damage that biggest challenge But by the early 1990s, research- pesticides could do to was to find extras ers had discovered that trans wildlife, had been out who were as skinny fat, which is created when oil is for nine years. And as the original con- partially hydrogenated to make the Rodale family was certgoers. shortening and stick margarine, preaching sustainable Not that every- raises LDL (“bad”) cholesterol and farming in its maga- laude Beaubien/fotolia.com, wendys.com, © wendys.com, Beaubien/fotolia.com, laude lowers HDL (“good”) cholesterol. C

body was lean back then. In the 1970s, zine Organic Gardening. But you couldn’t one out of two American adults was That’s a double whammy for your heart. buy organic produce in your grocery store, overweight or obese. Today, it’s two out of In 2003, the Food and Drug Administra- no matter what you were willing to spend. three. And the obese have gone from one tion announced that, starting in 2006, In 1990, a coalition of groups (includ- out of seven to one out of three Ameri- food labels would have to disclose the ing CSPI) persuaded Congress to pass the cans between the ages of 20 and 74. amount of trans fat in each serving. So it’s Organic Foods Production Act. But it took Excess weight increases the risk of no surprise that food manufacturers began 12 more years of negotiations before the

tephen VanHorn/fotolia.com, © VanHorn/fotolia.com, tephen type 2 diabetes, cancer, heart disease, to seriously cut out shortening in 2005. S U. S. Department of Agriculture finally high blood pressure, and osteoarthritis. Since then, issued rules that farmers had to follow to And youngsters aren’t immune. The we estimate that call their foods “organic.” percentage of overweight children and two-thirds of the Today, organic food is a $25-bllion-a- adolescents has tripled over the past 40 trans fat in the year industry, fresh and processed organic years. Public health experts worry that American diet has food is available in virtually every super- extra pounds may make today’s children been eliminated. market, and a third of U.S. consumers say ( the first generation of Americans to have Bravo! that they buy organic foods at least once a shorter lifespan than their parents. Photos: a month. © left) upper from clockwise

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