Further proving that more and more people are cooking and eating at home in this down (and downright scary) economy, today’s edition of The Wall Street Journal reports that magazine racks are getting an extra helping of food titles:

There will be 336 such magazines published this year, nearly a third more than in 2003, according to the National Directory of Magazines. Many of those titles have shown brisk circulation growth.

That’s an impressive — some would say extremely bold — increase, especially when you consider that ad pages in the magazine industry have fallen 7.4% overall. Well-known titles like Gourmet and Cooking Light have seen double-digit percentage decreases.

According to the article, the new magazines are banking on people’s growing desire to save money and get in touch with the Rachel Ray or the Emeril Lagasse within. That’s good news for supermarkets, which of course sell pretty much everything readers will need. Stores can also carry these new titles — like Food Network Magazine or Sandra Lee’s Semi-Homemade — on their magazine racks, and perhaps incorporate them into nifty cross promotions, depending on the recipes inside.

The most important point to note, however, is the influence these publications have over consumer attitudes, especially when it comes to health and wellness. No longer in line with the Julia Child school of cooking, magazine editors are focusing on healthy dishes and cranking out green-themed issues. They’re also, like us, writing about the news, trends and politics behind the food industry.

Let’s hope retailers and other magazine vendors make room at the display rack for these new titles. Certainly, promoting the benefits of home cooking, and meals eaten together at home, can be just as rewarding as the healthful ingredients listed in all those recipes.

Kiosks have a long history in supermarkets. When we were working on our 50th anniversary issue of Supermarket News in 2002, part of my job was to review archival photographs from the early days of the modern supermarket era. I recall seeing several different types of kiosks, including one that made fresh orange juice (good luck trying to find one of those today, unless it’s HACCP-certified and attached to pasteurization equipment).

Their purpose, design and location may have changed over the years, but these miniature sales outlets are just as important now as they were back when. Indeed, they’ve become quite the rage. Schnuck Markets has just introduced a “ShoptoCook Recipe Solutions Center” to 27 stores following a single-unit pilot last year. During a trip out to visit Hy-Vee last month, I learned the chain is expanding its in-store chef program, which includes an investment in demonstration kiosks.

And any discussion of this topic wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Publix, with its successful Apron’s program, which emphasizes in-store cooking demonstrations, easy-to-read recipe cards, and readily available ingredients, merchandised at the kiosk.

Schnucks’ program is a bit different. Here, the devices aren’t manned action stations, but sources of information. Each store features three kiosks, including one each in the meat and wine departments, that provide printed recipes, wine pairings and information on a variety of health conditions.

The fact that retailers are showing renewed interest in these little way stations isn’t surprising, They’re flexible merchandisers that pack a marketing punch. Nothing beats a chef in a toque and the aroma of fresh food. Even if kiosks are limited to dispensing information in the whole health department or recipes near the meat case, they serve as an important customer intercept capable of influencing purchase decisions. More power to ‘em.

Supermarkets may be ramping up their selection of local food, but for some people the only way to go is straight to the source. For years, farmers markets and CSA’s have helped link these local-minded consumers with area growers, and now the connection is happening online with sites like eatgreendfw.com, which launched earlier this week.

“DFW” in this case stands for Dallas-Fort Worth. A growing number of consumers there apparently (shockingly!) don’t think that everything needs to be bigger in Texas, and thus have set out to find fresh food that comes with a smaller carbon footprint. Started by a local member of the Slow Food movement, eatgreendfw.com currently features 24 area growers and ranchers from whom consumers can buy directly.

More and more organizations are establishing a similar web presence. Last year, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture launched “Kentucky Proud”, a database of affiliated in-state farmers. This summer, the Alabama Farmers Market Authority debuted Farmer Connect, a service that links produce growers with restaurants, retailers and consumers.

What’s cool about eatgreendfw is that the site also offers an overnight delivery option. Order steaks from Sloans Creek Farms in Dodd City, or JZJ Natural Beef in Troy. If you’ve got a hankering for honey, ask for some from the Roundrock Honey Company from Dallas. Some items are still prone to Texas-sized thinking, however. The site offers Fred’s Alaska Seafood, for instance. Last I checked, Kenai salmon were not native to north Texas.

The tidal debate regarding drinking water is pretty spent once it laps at the supermarket aisle. Consumers who are aware of the issue either have decided to keep buying bottled H2O, or they’ve gone back to tap water, and have purchased reusable bottles and all the accessories that make faucet water more convenient and portable.

Where does this leave supermarkets? Right in the middle, where they want to be. We just returned from a drinking water symposium sponsored by a new player in the filtered water category, ZeroWater. The Bensalem, Pa.-based company already has a kitchen cooler system that’s been available at select home improvement stores. Now they’re going deep retail and offering a refrigerator-friendly 8-cup pitcher (see photo).

The panel discussion hosted by the company included the author of the book Bottlemania, a pediatrician, and a holistic health counselor. Each had their own take on the benefits of drinking tap water over bottled. Reasons varied from the environmental to the medical to the practical.

The questions in my mind are: Why aren’t more supermarkets participating in the discussion? Do they offer reusable bottles? Do they have pitcher systems like ZeroWater, or Brita or Pur? Where are they selling them? Are they buried in nonfoods or up front with the cases and jugs of bottled water, along with some information and guidance?

Supermarkets always like to boast how they provide the best choices. This is one opportunity, closely tied to health and wellness, that mainstream retailers seem to be missing.

As the humane treatment of animals becomes more of a purchase driver, it was only a matter of time before someone polled supermarket chains to see who was doing what.

That time is now, courtesy of the World Society for the Protection of Animals. The organization is just out with its first-ever availability guide of humanely labeled foods in U.S. supermarkets. The group ranked the largest 25 retailers in the country (though the final list turns out to be 23 because of mergers during the survey period), recording products in four categories – dairy, eggs, unprocessed meat and poultry, and processed meat and poultry (bacon, ham, hot dogs, etc.). Points were awarded based on the quality of humane certification programs used, and the variety of products available.

Not surprisingly, Whole Foods Market scored the best, offering twice as many humanely certified products as Wegmans Foods Markets. Wal-Mart Supercenters and Stater Bros. Market ranked the lowest, though the lowest-scoring individual chain was Food Lion, which had two stores offering a single certified product. Delhaize, Food Lion’s parent, received a higher score due to an above-average showing by Hannaford Bros., Food Lion’s northern sibling, which had an average of 15 products on display.

Other big winners were regional operators Ruddick Corp.’s Harris Teeter and H.E. Butt Grocery. Kroger Co. and Publix Super Markets tied for fifth.

As for product selection, 416 unique humane food labels were recorded during store visits by WSPA representatives after tot he survey. All 23 supermarket corporations offered at least one cage free or free-range brand of eggs and at least one organic dairy product in one or more of their stores. Meat and poultry products were harder to find; in fact, four of the bottom five companies offered no humanely labeled meat.

Organic was the most common humane claim, followed by cage free/free range, humane verified, and grass fed.

We Americans have frustrating, often short-lived relationships with our diets. Some may blame that on the willpower of the individual or the effectiveness of the diet itself, but I think it’s more in the way we’re framing the issue. If I could take a bit of creative liberty and sum up mainstream health and diet marketing in one sentence, it’d go something like this: You screwed up, fatty, and now you need to do this.

Who wants motivation like that? Less and less people, thankfully. An interesting story from the New York Times last week points out that more people are taking a positive approach to eating. Rather than focus on the “bad” foods that they need to take out of their diet, they’re instead focused on adding in real foods that are healthy — and yes, sometimes indulgent. Instead of avoiding snacking (and feeling ashamed for even thinking about it!) for example, eat some fruit or a handful of pistachios when you get hungry.

According to the NPD Group, consumer food diaries show that only 26% of women and 16% of men are “on a diet”. That’s the lowest percentage for both groups since NPD started collecting results in 1985. Similarly, the Calorie Control Council reports that the percentage of people on a diet has decreased from 33% in 2004 to 29% in 2007.

Taken one way, these numbers could mean we’re at our unhealthiest. But I think we all know that’s not true. The growth of organic, local, seasonal foods and many other trends have all signaled shifts toward positive eating. People are realizing that reaching healthy goals doesn’t mean they have to be prodded, guilt-tripped and denied. Rather, they can appreciate what they eat and feel encouraged. With that, then, comes understanding and maybe, dare I say it — enlightenment?

Like politicians, any food that makes promises is bound to face scrutiny. Organics is no exception. This summer the category faced a broadside from several sources stating that organic foodstuffs are no more nutritious than conventionally produced products.

The most recent viewpoints, based on research conducted by the University of Copenhagen, concluded that there were no discernible differences between crops grown organically and those treated with pesticides.

Earlier, the American Council on Science and Health went one step further. The agribusiness-funded group reviewed existing data and found that conventional food is actually 2% more nutritious than organic. That assertion rebutted a study released in March by the Organic Center, a Boulder, Colo.-based organization promoting organic research — which found that organic was, on average, 25% more nutrient dense than the conventional.

What does the ultimate arbiter in U.S. food policy say? Ironically, the government has sounded a consistent theme since national organic standards were first unveiled in March 2000.

“The organic classification is not a judgment about the quality or safety of any product,” intoned then-USDA Secretary Dan Glickman. “Organic is about how it is produced. Just because something is labeled as organic does not mean it is superior, safer or more healthy than conventional food.”

Some experts believe that the battle for nutrition superiority is overshadowing the more immediate issues of sustainability, conservation and ecology — and that’s where more definitive statements can be made about the benefits organics bring to the industry, and in turn, to shoppers. In the Land of the Free, the organic label is about giving consumers a choice.

In 1988, two Harvard scientists received the first ever patent for a genetically altered animal — the OncoMouse, which had been engineered with a high susceptibility to cancer, thus making it, they thought, the perfect test subject for new drugs and procedures. That venture didn’t pan out (much to the delight of mice everywhere), but it did signal the beginning of a push to streamline and market genetically engineered animals.

Fast-forward nearly twenty years, and that market seems ready to take off. Pigs that produce high levels of omega-3 fatty acids are now in development, as are cows that are naturally resistant to mad cow disease. There are also animals now being engineered to grow cells, tissue and organs for transplant to humans.

None of these animals have been approve for commercial use, but soon they will. Just today, the Food and Drug Administration held a briefing that outlined its regulatory stance regarding transgenic animals. Before an animal is approved for market, according to the FDA, producers will have to prove that the genetic changes are safe for both the animal and for the consumer. If it ends up as food, it has to be proven safe to eat. If the animal is producing a pharmaceutical, then that has to be approved through the same process as other pharmaceuticals. And so on. To ensure compliance, the agency recommended that manufacturers work individually with the agency.

While the FDA and the research community remain positive about the potential for genetically engineered animals, I think it’s safe to say that consumers are on edge. Most of them don’t like the idea of “Frankenfood”, just as they didn’t like the idea of consuming meat or milk from cloned animals, which the FDA approved early this year.

Manufacturers will be required to label food as coming from a genetically engineered animal only if the end product is different from its non-engineered counterpart. That’s only a partial solution, because not all genetic changes will manifest themselves in, say, a nutrient profile.

Unfortunately, transparency cannot be genetically modified into the product. Retailers will soon be called on (again, like the cloned animal issue) to step up and state their policy on selling GM proteins. The public comment period now in play will do much to shape the debate, so listen up.

More and more studies are showing that companies need to improve their green marketing efforts. Note that “improve” in this case does not mean “expand,” as many have interpreted it. If anything — given consumer confusion in this green-saturated market — companies should pull back and really focus their environmental efforts and the way they convey them.

A just-released study from consumer market research firm Yankelovich shows that while consumers believe in the need for environmental efforts, many of them (41%) don’t believe it’s their job to help. This certainly doesn’t bode well for retailers and manufacturers, who have banked a lot of products and promotions on consumers’ willingness to do their part. Is the bottom about to fall out?

In short, no. As I wrote in a post earlier this summer, people are having a hard time navigating all the green noise out there. They want to help, but they just don’t know how or who to trust. This shouldn’t be mistaken for apathy or a waning of eco-consciousness as a movement — it should be taken, rather, as a challenge for retailers and manufacturers to step up their game.

Consumers, according to Dr. David Bersoff, author of the report from Yankelovich, “are becoming less willing to help marketers pay for the greening of their business and products.”

Before promoting green, going green, doing the green thing, or whatever iteration that takes on within a company, make sure to define what exactly that is. Is it a recycling program that reduces X amount of waste per year? Is it installing solar panels? How much energy and money will it save?

Your shoppers want to know.

I stumbled across this study from the Netherlands, but I think the findings are pretty universal. Despite good intentions, consumers are usually pretty impulsive when actually making a choice.

In this case, the object is healthful food as opposed to less nutritious snacks like chocolate bars or chips. The study, from Wageningen University, asked 585 office employees to choose between these four items: an apple, a banana, a candy bar and something called a molasses waffle (not healthy, I’m guessing here).

About one-half of the test subjects stated they’d choose the piece of fruit. But, when they were presented with the actual snacks a week later, 27% of them changed their minds and took the candy or the waffle. What’s more, the group that originally said they would take the sweets stuck with their intentions and chose the less healthful items a week later.

The findings reinforce the point proven in earlier studies. The first part of the test called upon our ability to reason and make rational judgments, whereas the latter part gave full control to emotions, and the desire for immediate gratification. In a world were microwaves are considered obsolete, it’s pretty simple to determine how this study would turn out.

Another study I wrote about some months ago got similar results by comparing what was written on shopping lists and what ended up in the cart. The key insight here is that consumers need some guidance at the shelf — more than shelf talkers or rail strips — something that will make them pause and stop thinking with their stomachs. Good intentions don’t work, nor do threats or anything related to willpower. In the meantime, the old advice will have to remain our first defense: Never go shopping when you’re hungry.