Alas, hard-hearted researchers have poured icy cold water on that romanticised notion. In a very useful article in AdWeek, Harry Balzer, The NPD Group’s vice president and chief industry analyst, observes that:

Americans have been microwaving their way through the recession. Use of the actual stove — i.e., the kitchen instrument that cooks food as opposed to merely thawing it out and warming it up — has fallen to new lows. “Americans are eating in their homes,” he says, “but they’re microwaving, not cooking.” He adds that the increase in microwaving “was entirely in frozen foods” and not in any use that would qualify for the term “cooking.” Microwaving had been flat for the previous 20 years, but it surged last year as the recession prompted consumers to shift from takeout foods to less-expensive microwaveable products — say, frozen pizza rather than pizzeria pizza.

If you were considering developing new products such as baking ingredients, to take advantage of the perceived move back to warm and fuzzy traditional home values, forget it. If it can be reheated, it’s a contender. Otherwise not.

The AdWeek article also notes that:

If Americans were looking to food for comfort in the past year, it was more likely to be in the form of a snack and a beer than a slow-cooked pot roast. A recent Mintel report pointed to potato chips as a category that has performed well in the past year after having been flat earlier in the decade. Mintel senior analyst Bill Patterson notes some other categories that have fared well during the economic downturn. “Comfort-type foods that have benefited include pancake mixes, eggs, butter/margarine, salty snacks, beer, cream and creamers and sweet spreads,” he says.

Health is out of favor as well

As The NPD Group puts it, healthier eating has been “one of the big casualties” of the recession. Price is an obvious factor, since, as Balzer notes, healthier foods tend to be more expensive. In any case, consumers’ oft-proclaimed intention to pursue a healthier diet could be fragile. “I think they want to eat healthier, but they don’t,” he says, adding an allusion to an Eddie Vedder lyric that says we “change by not changing.” And consumers sometimes make do with a pinched sense of what constitutes healthy eating. “We eat healthier versions of a food we shouldn’t be eating at all,” says Balzer. And even that limited step fell victim to the recession, as supermarket shoppers focused more intently on price.

On a brighter note, market researchers Synovate have found that new products are still important in the food business. “Brands need to stress innovation. With many consumers thinking about price/value, marketers have to create impactful innovation more than ever.” That dovetails with Balzer’s observation that the downturn has not squelched consumers’ interest in innovation in supermarket goods. “I don’t think the recession has stopped us from wanting new and novel things,” says Balzer, even if the bad economy has led marketers to cut back on new-product launches.

Worth reading the full article at AdWeek.

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