Helping to promote healthy diets and lifestyles: the role of the food industry.

In order to be successful, public health nutrition strategies require the active collaboration of all stakeholders in the promotion of healthy diet and lifestyle patterns. The food industry plays an important role both in providing products that meet consumers' needs in terms of taste, convenience, quality, nutrition and value as well as in communicating to consumers about the importance of good nutrition, including the contribution of specific foods to a balanced diet. The food industry contributes to educational efforts regarding healthy diets and lifestyles both directly--through product labelling, advertising, educational materials, on-line communications and information provided by Consumer Services departments--and indirectly, through active involvement and participation in educational programmes pursued in collaboration with nutrition and health education authorities. Through ongoing dialogue with its consumers and research conducted on consumer knowledge and attitudes towards diet, the food industry can ensure that communications developed are motivating and relevant to consumers' lives. In this paper, the specific contribution of the food industry will be illustrated through the promotion of healthy eating habits among children, focusing in particular on the importance of the breakfast meal.

Effects of lowering fat and increasing dietary fiber on fasting and postprandial plasma lipids in hypercholesterolemic subjects consuming a mixed Mediterranean-Western diet.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the cholesterol-lowering effects of reducing fat and increasing or not increasing dietary fiber in subjects consuming a mixed Mediterranean-Western diet. Thirty-one free-living, mildly hypercholesterolemic subjects were randomly allocated to two groups. Subjects in both groups first shifted for 4 wk to a low-fat, low-fiber diet (LFLFD). For an additional 4-wk period, subjects in group 1 continued consuming the LFLFD whereas subjects in group 2 consumed a low-fat, high-fiber diet (LFHFD). Most dietary fatty acids were monounsaturated (38-41%) and fibers, when provided (up to 35 g/d), came from unrefined cereals, legumes, and soluble-fiber-enriched ready-to-eat cereals. After period 1 of the LFLFD, mean serum and low-density-lipoprotein (LDL)-cholesterol concentrations of subjects in groups 1 (-12.5% and -15.5%, respectively) and 2 (-10.5% and -15.5%, respectively) decreased significantly from baseline (P < 0.05). After period 2, mean serum and LDL-cholesterol concentrations of subjects consuming the LFLFD (group 1) were still lower (by 8.8% and 9.2%, respectively, from baseline) whereas in subjects consuming the LFHFD (group 2) these values decreased further to significantly lower values (14.2% and 17.6% from baseline, respectively). Fasting high-density-lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, apolipoprotein A-I, glycemia, and insulinemia did not change significantly. In seven men, postprandial lipemia transiently increased more after a breakfast test meal at the completion of the LFHFD period than after the LFLFD period. In conclusion, an LFHFD more comparable with the traditional Mediterranean diet may improve the dietary management of moderate hypercholesterolemia.