Survey finds moms put trust in blogs for food facts

Sunday, January 27, 2013 by: Ben Meredith
Tags: food facts, moms, online research

(NaturalNews) With a growing concern about pesticides, genetic modification, and additives in their children's food, a new survey has found that moms put more faith in blogs and peers rather than the government for information.

The poll was conducted by Fleishman-Hillard and TheMotherhood.com, and was titled "Cart to Kitchen 2013: Slicing Into Moms' Food Decisions." It included more than 1,000 American mothers. The survey included questions regarding grocery shopping habits, information sources, and other inquiries about day-to-day food choices. The most staggering figure was that 96 percent of the participants noted plans to change their food-buying habits in 2013.

It was clear; however, that the influence of food and parenting blogs was much more impressive to today's American mother than experts such as doctors or government sources. For example, in regard to knowledge about pesticides in food, 34 percent of the participants stated that they trust blogs for the information most. Only 20 percent of participants entrusted medical websites, and an even smaller 15 percent trusted doctors.

Information on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and artificial additives put food blogs at 39 percent each, whereas the government was rated 24 percent and 21 percent respectively.

The participants overwhelmingly cited that they felt major brands weren't relating to them and their individual needs. These survey results may ignite a serious change in food-and-beverage marketing in hopes of appealing to moms, which could be either a positive or negative thing depending on the course of action.

Additionally, the survey found that 78 percent of the participating moms read nutrition labels, and that half of the moms said they are doing so more these days than they ever have before. This is good news for the health-conscious mother, as it will (hopefully) avert marketers from coming up with deceiving packaging or misleading commercials.

Mothers are also determined to purchase less food containing high fructose corn syrup, sugar, artificial dyes and additives, and gluten for their families.

75 percent of moms also admitted to using technology in the kitchen. Heavy emphasis is put on food and cooking TV shows and food media websites. Cooper Munroe, co-founder of TheMotherhood.com, noted that these major food brands will need to analyze their uses of these mediums and utilize them to send the right messages. And, while food corporations are not known for their healthy messages, we can hope that they will approach marketing with a refreshing honesty.

Ultimately, wherever a mother's trust lies on information about the food she's feeding her children, it is important that honest and reliable facts can be found.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.foodsafetynews.com

http://www.upi.com

http://www.mediapost.com

About the author:
Ben enjoys writing about the benefits of green tea at Tendig.com, a revenue sharing site that publishes unique and interesting articles.