Americans Believe Whole Grains Are Healthiest Foods, Decision Analyst Study Shows

What foods and beverages do people in the United States think of as offering the greatest health benefits? Whole grains (59.5%) top the list, followed closely by broccoli (57.6%), bananas (56.9%), oatmeal (56.1%), green tea (55.1%), garlic (54.6%), spinach (54.6%), and carrots (52.4%). Participants in the survey were asked, "Which of the following foods and beverages provide additional health benefits beyond basic nutritional needs?" The answer list contained 70 foods and beverages commonly thought of as healthful, as well as some that might not be perceived as healthful. This data comes from the Health and Nutrition Strategist™, a major ongoing study to track nutritional and health trends, based on 4,000 interviews per year conducted by Decision Analyst, a leading international marketing research and marketing consulting firm.

The least healthful products were "spirits," defined as bourbon, vodka, rum, and scotch. Only 3.4% of participants identified "spirits" as healthy. Also at the bottom was beer, believed to be healthy by only 5.3% of respondents.

Methodology

Decision Analyst's Health and Nutrition Strategist™ survey is conducted online using its American Consumer Opinion® panel (http://www.acop.com). The survey is based on a nationally representative, statistically balanced sample of 4,087 American adults, conducted on a continuous basis each year. The margin of error is less than 2 percentage points. The Health and Nutrition Strategist™ is a massive, integrated knowledge base of food and beverage consumption, restaurant usage, health habits, and nutritional trends.

About Decision Analyst

Decision Analyst , based in Dallas-Fort Worth, is a leading international marketing research and marketing consulting firm specializing in advertising testing, strategy research, new product development, and advanced modeling for marketing decision optimization. The 30-year-old firm delivers competitive advantage to clients throughout the world in the consumer packaged goods, telecommunications, retail, high technology, medical and pharmaceutical, utilities, and e-commerce industries. In addition, Decision Analyst owns and operates the American Consumer Opinion® online panel, which has more than seven million participants and is one of the largest such panels in the world.

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