Subscribe RSS FeedMost people, given a choice, would probably like to keep eating and living healthier lives. But for some, economics gets in the way. There is a clear link between junk food consumption, for instance, and income. The poorer you are the more likely you are to rely on fast foods and junk foods for a big part of your diet.
So an interesting question for many people was what would happen to consumption or organic products such as organic shampoos or organic foods in the recession? Would people who have tried to go green during better times turn their backs on these products because they are (or at least are perceived to be) more expensive?
The funny thing is that this has not been happening to a large extent and a lot of people who though that green living was just a fad have been proved wrong. Some of the best data on people’s shopping habits and attitudes to food and other consumer items comes from Nielson. This company tracks sales of hundreds of thousands of products and interviews thousands of people every year to figure out what we are buying and what we are thinking. And its latest data shows that sales of healthy products have done very well over the last year, even though the economy has been in recession.
It found for instance that products that claimed to be low fat generated sales of $46 billion last year. That was down slightly on the year before, but not by much, just a mere 3 percent. Sales of other products such as those that are low in salt, or gluten free all rose last year. Products that were made from more “natural” ingredients also rose. Sales of organic products were also up, although at a far slower rate than in previous years. Almost $5 billion worth of organic products were sold last year, which shows that even in a downturn, many people are still trying to live and eat healthily.
Tags: going green, Organic food, organic shampoo