I spend a lot of my time thinking, talking and writing about what and how New Zealanders are eating.
And yet, exactly what and how New Zealanders are eating is something no one can be really sure about, at a big-picture level, because a national nutrition survey has notbeen done in more than 10 years. If we think about all the things that have changed about life and culture in the past 10 years, we can assume lots has changed about what we're eating, too. But to know this, we've had to piece together a picture from bits and pieces of research, sales data and statistics from different food sectors.
So it's interesting to see the results of a recent survey aimed at illuminating this a little. The Bayer Food Focus survey offers a snapshot of Kiwis' eating habits, and there are some fascinating revelations.
In a survey of Kiwis' eating habits, 13 per cent of people felt they should be eating less meat.
Some of them echo other surveys or what we hear from the food industry. The shift to vegetarian and vegan eating, for example. Almost a third of us, it seems, have tried vegetarian or vegan or "flexitarian" eating in the past year. Interestingly, though, "flexitarian" doesn't seem to resonate with us; just 8 per cent had tried that, they said, in the past year, while 20 per cent had tried a vegetarian diet. Thirteen per cent of people felt they should be eating less meat.
There are some intriguing disconnects in these survey results in people's attitudes to food, which demonstrate that people are complicated, and human nature comes into play when it comes to eating.
About 40 per cent of respondents in a recent survey were still falling short of getting five servings of vegetables and fruit a day.
For example, we know, we say, we should be eating more vegetables; this tops the list of foods respondents believe they should eat more of. That's great to see, but when it came to putting that into action, about 40 per cent of respondents were still falling short of getting five servings of vegetables and fruit a day. What we aspire to and what we do don't match.
It's a similar story for foods we know we should eat less of. The main foods mentioned here were the usual suspects: sweets, desserts, sugary foods, fast food and refined carbohydrates. But these are also the foods we turn to for comfort; when asked about comfort eating, the most-mentioned were also sweets, cakes, fast foods and savoury snacks. For more than 70 per cent of people, it seems, all bets were off when they felt stressed or down.
When we need comfort, we turn to sweets, cakes, fast foods and savoury snacks.
Another interesting disconnect shows up in the area of shopping. When asked about factors that influence our buying decisions, 41 per cent said choosing foods without too much plastic packaging was very or extremely important to them. A similar number said the same about "having food that is natural/has no additives".
But just 27 per cent said food produced in a sustainable way had the same importance, even though you could argue this is a more important decision if we want to save the planet.
At the end of the day, what I think shows up here is that food is personal. We all eat; we all have feelings and thoughts about food. And in what and how we eat we are inconsistent, irrational and totally, undeniably human.
• Niki Bezzant is editor-at-large for Healthy Food Guide; www.healthyfood.com
