Healthy Nutrition: Putting Pleasure back at the heart of food for all

From now on, health nutrition is no longer opposed to pleasure eating. In fact, psychology and neuroscience agree that these two concepts are intrinsically linked. The pleasure of eating would in fact be at the heart of nutrition issues. For example, the INRA/AgroParisTech Laboratory for Nutrition and Food Behaviour Physiology has been studying the impact of pleasure on food for some years. Understanding theimpact of food pleasure allows us to think of effective strategies to promote a better diet.

Health nutrition, the quest for a balance between science and marketing

Over the past decade, diets have changed dramatically. This is true for younger generations such as millennials and seniors. Breakfasts now promote protein and energy rather than sugar intake. The menus are gradually off the meat. New flagship products such as superfeds and chia seeds appear in closets.

In our frantic lifestyles, where the shadow of increasing cancers and obesity looms, the population is well aware that food is the place where hope and quality of life are played a lot. These considerations therefore impact the fund trends that shape the health nutrition market.

This awareness now encourages companies to focus on product quality. Which sell them sometimes as medicine,sometimes as well-being. Both are no longer necessarily excluded. Companies such as Nutriting are developing transparent and responsible dietary supplements; when others like Cuure rely on a personalized diet.

Beyond the fashion effect and the marketing concept accompanying diets and the cult of thinness, nutrition takes its place at the heart of health issues. For example, the pharmaceutical group Bayer currently owns about 70% of Care/Of, the leader in health nutrition. By 2022, it is expected to acquire all of it. (1)

health nutrition supplemental food sports personalization
Healthy nutrition and personalization of dietary supplements for individual needs.

Personalized nutrition to live better

In the age of ultra-personalization, it seems that food is not immune to movement. So companies specialize in personalized nutrition. The concept? Precisely study the specific needs of each organism and develop a suitable food program or dietary supplements. We are therefore working on a quality diet to strengthen immune defenses in particular, and the overall state of health. Through food, medicine is then preventive, rather than curative.

Personalized nutrition is now a new market with enormous potential. In a recent report, UBS estimated it at $1.3 billion in annual revenue in 2025, and estimated that it could approach $64 billion by 2040. Currently, the market is predominantly American, but cannot remain so for very long. Thus, in 2020 in the United States, sales continued to skyrocket. Undoubtedly boosted by the fear of the Covid-19, immunizing products increased by 125% in sales volume. Sales of vitamins grew by 77% and probiotics by 30%.

Now the boundaries between agri-food and pharmaceutical groups are blurring. Bayer is not alone in tackling this market. Danone has developed a division and brands for specialty nutrition (2). Baby, children, illness, aging… No stage of life is left out. The same is true of the Nestlé Group, which is making acquisitions in the field (3). Persona for personalized vitamins, LivingMatrix for the treatment of chronic diseases or Tails for pets…

Pleasure to eat: reconciling taste and nutritional qualities

However, eating well is not just about science and nutritional intake. More and more health nutrition laboratories are interested in the weight of the pleasure of eating in the food process. And it seems that it has long been largely underestimated. (4)

pleasure of eating healthy nutrition
The pleasure of eating in the service of a quality diet.

For good reason, the pleasure of eating dictates our choices and therefore our eating behaviors. Therefore, we can address the issue of the pleasure of eating in order to reorient these behaviours in favour of the real needs of our organizations. Similarly, pleasure is at the heart of the natural process of satiety. Indeed, without feeling satisfied, we tend to eat too much and badly.

Also, taking the measure of theimportance of pleasure in food allows to seek to end the opposition between gluttony and health. Companies are then working to change the negative perception of healthy products in order to facilitate their spontaneous integration into consumption patterns.

Others also rely on pleasure in the diet of thesick. Helping to keep morale and a taste for life, they seek to maintain the small pleasures of everyday life and inclusion within families. This is particularly the bias of Nutrisens, leader of health nutrition, who, on the occasion of the holiday season, proposed a festive menu fully mixed for people with dysphagic (5). Foie gras, lobster, salmon, scallops… No holiday flagship product has been forgotten to allow everyone to enjoy a gourmet meal.

Sources

  1. “Bayeron the road to personalization with Care/Of”,Culture Nutrition, article of September 11, 2020
  2. Specialized Nutrition,Danone
  3. “Nestlé Health Science Acquire LivingMatrix™ for Personalized Nutrition”,Nestlé Health Science, press release of January 2, 2020
  4. “Understandingthe links between food pleasure and nutrition to promote healthy and sustainable eating”,World of Great Schools, January 2015 study
  5. “Nutrisens: festive meals for a successful Christmas with a dysphagic close”, Nutrisens, press release of 16 December 2020
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