Low hedonic value of the recommended diet as a barrier to consumer acceptance

Background for OPUS

In the promotion of healthy diets and meals nutrition experts often face the sceptical attitude that the recommended diet is unpalatable, and many consumers regard this diet as being boring and requiring ascetic practices in cooking and food choice.

 

The conflict has been particularly intense at the level of gastronomists, and in the Nordic countries nutritional science and gastronomy have been on a collision course for centuries, and historically dietary advice has been formulated and communicated by ascetic doctors and puritan priests.

 

Some gastronomists have regarded nutritional advice as an anti-hedonistic crusade against the pleasure giving qualities of food, and against sensuality as such.

 

A Danish study has demonstrated that the lack of sufficient focus on the gastronomic properties of the recommended diet leads to increased drop-out during a course of weight maintenance following a weight loss programme in obese individuals (Astrup et al. 2003).

 

Research bridging between palatability and healthy nutrition is a fairly new discipline. At the Faculty of Life Sciences nutrition scientists are working closely together with sensory scientists and chefs to explore the interface between palatability, gastronomy and healthy diets, in order to develop more palatable foods and meals in the context of a nutritional profile that complies with the current dietary recommendations.

 

This development has gained more impetus as a younger generation of Scandinavian chefs is gaining a reputation of being some of the most talented in Europe, and the eye of the culinary world is on the Nordic Region, expecting the next gastronomic revolution to come from here.

 

A manifesto defining the criteria and references for a New Nordic Cuisine has forecasted that it is possible to establish a cuisine (culinary culture) that not only bridges the gap between palatability and health, but also protects the environment of plants and animals, the biodiversity and the amenity value of the land, and the welfare of the globe in general (Ny Nordisk Mad).

 

In Copenhagen these chefs have created a New Nordic Cuisine, and this cuisine is now the focus at their restaurants ("Geranium", "Vianvang", "Noma"). Noma with 2 stars in Michelin guide, has attracted particular attention and is ascending on all international gastronomic rating lists, and consequently the New Nordic Cuisine has aroused an international stir.

 

Back home in the North, its value has been acknowledged by the Nordic Council of Ministers as the ideological basis for the 'New Nordic Food Programme'.

In the New Nordic Cuisine’s manifesto, it is stated in item 4 that 'we seek to unite the demand for palatability with modern knowledge about health and well-being'. However, until now New Nordic Cuisine has predominantly been at the highest gastronomic level, and most people cannot afford to visit these restaurants.

 

The emerging understanding by both gastronomists and nutrition experts that there is a shared route to create the "New Nordic Diet" (NND) offers an outstanding opportunity to develop a "trendy" healthy diet based on regional food that bridges gastronomy, health, and sustainability, and that will also be available to those segments of the population who suffer most from nutritionally related lifestyle diseases, and who normally do not exhibit an interest in gastronomic cooking.

 

One of the key aims of the OPUS centre is to create a healthy, region based NND that can be a counterpart to e.g. the Mediterranean diet in popularity and acceptance.

 

Many of the characteristic regional primary products that play a central role in the New Nordic Cuisine, such as barley, oats, rye, cabbage, cold pressed rape oil, sea foods and fish, berries, wild game, and freerange meat products which differ from most of our livestock by grazing freely, and these are identical to the very healthy primary produces mentioned as a fictive example of 'a regional New Nordic Diet' described by Bere and Brug (Bere & Brug 2008).

 

It remains an open question if such food products may possess special and unique properties when grown in the Nordic climate.

 

The research will commence in WP 1 and WP 2 with a detailed analysis of meal choices and patterns in different socioeconomic groups, stratified by age and gender, and develop healthy, palatable meals within the framework of the NND. Sensoric testing and acceptance by consumer groups will be examined and lead to rapid feed-back in the development programme. Consumer involvement is critical, and user-driven innovation will play a central role lead by experienced food sociologists.

 

The outcome of these WP’s should be a well-defined diet with ample recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner meals that can be tested in dietary interventions studies in adults (WP 3), and children (WP 5).

 

(Published on foodoflife.dk)