DATE: Wednesday, October 29, 1997           TAG: 9710290653

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A7   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAT DOOLEY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: BOSTON                            LENGTH:   46 lines

CONVENIENCE REPLACES NUTRITION ATOP U.S. TABLES

America's decade-long obsession with nutrition is over as increasingly busy families simply scramble to get dinner on the table, a leading trends-watcher said Tuesday.

``We've changed our attitude about this whole issue,'' Harry Balzer said at the 80th annual convention of the American Dietetic Association, the world's largest organization of food and nutrition professionals.

Balzer, vice president of the NPD Group in Rosemont, Ill., has studied the way America eats for about 20 years.

In 1990, interest in nutrition peaked, Balzer said, as Americans reached for labels touting low cholesterol, reduced fat, less sugar.

Today, ``the buzzword is home-meal replacement,'' said Balzer, sharing information from his soon-to-be-released 12th annual ``Report on Eating Patterns in America.''

We buy about half of our meals at restaurants, many of them fast food. Often we take meals home to eat, rather than cook them ourselves.

We make about 56 percent of our home-cooked meals from scratch, compared with about 64 percent in 1985.

Women plan and prepare about 74 percent of meals made in the home. That has held steady since 1990, even though more women work outside the home, Balzer said.

So families are looking for quick alternatives.

``We're talking about changes in meal preparation, not eating habits,'' he said.

What's turning up on our dinner tables isn't much different from the past 20 years - pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, steaks, sandwiches.

But, in the name of convenience, we're reaching for fewer side dishes such as vegetables, Balzer said. Sometimes, we're even eating behind the wheel, on our way from one place to another.

Those habits aren't likely to change soon, Balzer said. But aging baby boomers will fuel a few other changes.

As their children grow up and leave home, boomers will have more dollars to eat out. But their age also will dictate a movement toward physician-prescribed special diets. ``Forty percent of the adult population over 50 will be on a diet they have to be on,'' Balzer said.

Vitamins and other dietary supplements, among the fastest-selling health products in the country, will stay strong.

``The goal for us,'' Balzer said, ``will be to live longer.''

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