Trends in consumer attitudes toward food and health: From food biotechnology to personalized nutrition

Scientific knowledge of the health benefits of citrus and other food components is developing rapidly. For example, consumers cite oranges and orange juice more than any other food as the ones that come to mind in promoting health. Consumers obtain nutrition information from a variety of resources, including the media, food labels, and health professionals, which can contribute to confusion and frustration. In addition, information from the human genome is providing us with tremendous potential to improve the quality of human nutrition in the future. The term "nutrigenomics" has now been coined to describe a new concept in "personalized nutrition" where an individual's DNA profile will be used to better determine which foods or nutrients they should consume more or less of due to their increased risk for a particular disease or health condition. Using International Food Information Council's six years of consumer attitudinal research on functional foods and "personalized nutrition," as well as 2004 data updating consumer attitudes toward food biotechnology, this paper will provide readers the tools to effectively address the challenges and opportunities in communicating the health benefits of citrus and other food components to consumers.