Driving Reformulation With Science and Strategy

How can the food technology industry best reformulate what Americans eat to reduce fat, salt, and sugar without compromising taste and texture? Academics and industry consultants tackled that central question Monday afternoon at IFT FIRST®: Annual Event and Expo, during a keynote panel titled, “Reducing Fat, Salt, and Sugar for Healthier Foods,” and moderated by Janet Helm, founder of Food at the Helm.

Christopher Gardner, Rehnborg Farquhar Professor of Medicine at Stanford Medicine, detailed his involvement in—and the progress to date of—the federal government’s Dietary Guidelines for Americans effort, which is due to issue its once-every-five-years update later this year.

The group of 20 scientists involved began with 80 questions, which divided into as many as 31 sub-questions, he explained. Among their many conclusions: lowering intake of saturated fat is accomplished less by switching varieties of products within a category, such as from fatty to lean meat or whole to skim milk, as by shifting one’s intake of entire whole food groups, for example prioritizing beans, peas, and lentils, Gardner said.

Such scientific conclusions should guide industry formulation strategies on a number of fronts, with a common aim of gradual rather than dramatic wins, said Maha Tahiri, CEO and founder of Nutrition Sustainability Strategies, a boutique consulting firm based in Minneapolis. “The most successful reformulations are the ones consumers don’t [notice] until they have adopted them,” she said.

Part of the challenge in reducing fat, sugar, and salt in the food matrix is that those components add more than just taste and flavor, said Youngsoo Lee, associate professor of biological systems engineering at Washington State University. They also have an impact on food safety, structure, texture, and functionality. “They’re difficult to eliminate entirely,” he said. “That’s the challenge we’re facing, due to their innate roles.”

But they can be gradually reduced without compromising on those useful attributes, a goal that Lee noted many products on the IFT FIRST Expo floor aim to accomplish, through replacers and enhancers. Other challenges that processors face in making these reductions, he said, include the potential for added costs, as well as their adaptability to production lines. “If you change an ingredient, can you use the same processing line, or does it need to be redesigned?”

Noting the federal government’s current focus on food additives, Gardner said that there’s notable overlap between additives like colorants, flavorants, and emulsifiers, and products that are also high in salt, fat, and sugar. “We need to do more work to show where the overlap is,” he said. “We have to think about how we’re going to collect that data—what kinds of studies are needed—and also deal with that idea that there’s this huge overlap.”

While some ultra-processed foods have been linked with adverse health outcomes like heart disease, others have not, Tahiri pointed out. “Not all ultra-processed foods are created equal,” she said, suggesting that a healthfulness matrix needs to be created that accounts for not only how “clean” a product’s label is, but also what level of nutritional density it offers.

“The industry should refocus on regaining the trust of consumers,” she added, with surveys that go beyond the surface to touch on their deeper motivations. “Then, reformulate with a purpose. People eat [a product] for multiple reasons. If you are hitting one or two of the big values they are looking for—decreasing sodium, or sugar, or fat—then we will win back some of the trust of the consumer.”

Gardner expressed skepticism that consumer education alone will shift average Americans to healthier products, citing research that showed respondents vulnerable to cravings despite community-based interventions beforehand. “In their hearts, they wanted the [most nutritious choice]. In the moment, they wanted what looked and tasted best,” he said, adding that while education might help, “it’s also going to rely on policy and industry coming together.”

In addition, while consumers need to change their habits, if they feel too blamed for making the wrong choices, that can backfire, Gardner said. “There’s a huge psychological component that messes people up for the future,” he said. “Yes, there’s some consumer responsibility. But that has to be tied to [government and industry] responsibility.”

While government can set overall direction, for example with the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement launched by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the industry will need to fill in the details, Tahiri said. “MAHA says less processed foods, more whole foods. They have no idea how to make that happen,” she said. “Industry has to figure out how to make it happen. This is an opportunity to reframe the way we see processed food.”

While Kennedy’s focuses on elements like seed oils, food dyes, and beef tallow might seem like side issues, they might help gain the attention of consumers otherwise inured to what seem like constant warnings that “this is killing you,” Gardner said. “If we can reframe the question—can we show you where the bigger piece of the puzzle is that’s the problem?” he said. “You’re getting obsessed with a tiny piece of the puzzle. Let’s shift the focus. That will take better communication from us scientists, who get all geeky and lose people in the details.” He added that industry and academia also “are going to have to speak each other’s language more.”ft