"Real Food" Stages a Comeback

For food growers, the past two decades must have seemed like some nightmarish Nutrition Court. One after another, popular foods from butter to beef have been hauled into the dock and charged with crimes against health and humanity. "Guilty," the jury of popular and scientific opinion has snapped each time. The punishment: a sentence to suffer lower sales and market shares. Bang of gavel. But these days, food manufacturers have wised up. They are now mounting aggressive advertising campaigns to press claims that their products have got a bum rap and to extoll the benefits of the genuine article. Enter the rehabilitation of real food.

Meat and dairy groups, which have suffered the most from consumers' withdrawal pangs, are making the biggest efforts to regain public trust. In January the National Live Stock and Meat Board launched a $30 million promotion campaign that it hopes will beef up sales that have been less than bullish since 1976. Back then, Americans' per capita consumption was 94 lbs., & in contrast to 80 lbs. last year.

The "Real Food For Real People" ads feature such wholesome types as Actress Cybill Shepherd and Actor James Garner, who was named the "last real man" in 1985 by PEOPLE magazine. Along with the glitz and macho, though, the industry emphasizes that cattle are now bred leaner and cuts of beef are trimmed of excess fat. Today, consumers are told, a 3-oz. serving of beef contains the same level of cholesterol as an equivalent amount of chicken.

The National Pork Producers Council is trying to boost consumer interest with former Olympic Figure Skating Champ Peggy Fleming and a $7 million pitch presenting pork as the "other white meat," comparing it favorably with poultry. The National Dairy Board meanwhile is plugging milk, yogurt and cheese for their high content of a vaunted mineral. "Calcium the way nature intended," blare the ads. All-dairy products get to sport a red REAL seal.

Almost every industry group is touting nutrition. The Washington Apple Commission, a growers' organization based in Wenatchee, calls its fruit the "original health food" and asserts that the natural fiber in apples is an appetite suppressor. The Potato Board is pushing its vegetable as "multivitamins with minerals." Even the Sugar Association has something positive to stress: the sweetener's low 16 calories a teaspoon and its placement on the Food and Drug Administration's "safe" list, a claim artificial alternatives cannot make. "Which would you rather put on your kids' cereal?" the ads ask.

To be sure, the unsavory reputations of certain foods are undeserved. "Potatoes have complex carbohydrates, fiber and are a good source of vitamin C," says Dr. Walter Mertz, director of the U.S.D.A.'s Human Nutrition Research Center in Beltsville, Md. "As a basic food, they're excellent." Some food scientists point out that there is no such thing as a "bad" food. "Every food, even sugar, meat or eggs, has its place as part of a balanced and varied diet, as long as it is not taken in excess," Mertz observes.