With Less-Fattening, More Varied and Flavorful Foods, Home Kitchens Aren't Stocked Like They Used to Be

"There's a delicious repertoire of these dishes that still speak to modern palates, from countries and regions from Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean to North Africa, to Southern Italy, Mexico, Southeast Asia and India," Drescher says. "It's a huge opportunity to leverage the public interest in these world flavors to help implement the dietary guidelines."

The guidelines, released by the government in January, are the scientific and nutritional foundation for the revised pyramid that was unveiled last week.

The Oldways Preservation and Exchange Trust, a food-issues think tank in Boston, also endorses this approach. "We are not one people in America," says K. Dun Gifford, Oldways' founder and president. "We're a mixture of waves of immigrants. And each wave brought its food preferences with it, changing what's in our markets, restaurants and pantries.

"Look at rice paper, tortillas and pitas as a way of carrying food to our mouths. These roll-ups traditionally use small amounts of liquid >fats -- they're not deep-fat fried or loaded with salad dressing, mayonnaise or tartar sauce. They rely on seasonings for their exciting tastes."

The increase in affordable ethnic restaurants has also affected how we shop for food. "One thing we see all the time in food service trends is a filtering through to what people eat at home," says Bill Patterson, the U.S. research director of Mintel Group, a firm based in Chicago and London that analyzes consumer markets. "Ethnic fast casual restaurants grew 160 percent between 1998 and 2003."

There are practical reasons for stocking an expanded range of ingredients and flavors as well. No last-minute panic about dinner. No frantic trips to the grocery store or desperate calls for takeout. ""It allows you to be versatile," says Ellen Haas, a former undersecretary of agriculture for food, nutrition and consumer services and founder of FoodFit.com. "You can start with a chicken breast and give it a different taste and flavor if you have a wide variety of herbs and spices from different parts of the world."

Will Americans embrace a changing world of ingredients, flavors, spices and herbs for their pantries? To some extent we already have. According to the Food Institute, an information resource for the food industry, sales of Mexican and Asian food products are gradually increasing. Americans spent a slight 0.8 percent more on Mexican food products in 2004 than in 2001, increasing the total to $1.03 billion. But Mexican sauce sales rose 7.4 percent, to $932 million from $867.4 million. And Asian food expenditures rose to $310 million from $285.2 million -- an 8.7 percent increase.

Inherently healthful foods have become more popular, too. According to the Soyfoods Association of North America, tofu sales, for example, increased to $265 million in 2004 from $250 million in 2003, a 6 percent rise.

Balzer, who has been studying the American diet for 25 years, is cautious. "We are explorers with our diet and adventurous in our eating but extremely resistant to change," he says. "We like to try new things. But once we try them, they're old. So the real challenge is the repeat. And it's the things we repeat that dictate how healthy we are."

Balzer holds out hope that the dietary guidelines and the more informed way we shop for food and stock our pantries will benefit future generations.

"Today's mothers have more information about what to feed their families, so that taste may be altered for young people," he adds. "I can already see that happening. It's hard for us to change, but we might have our children change, and therein lies the benefit."