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Moderated by Johanna Dwyer of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Jean Mayer U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, this session included four presentations. Katherine Tucker, also of the Jean Mayer USDA HNRCA at Tufts University, spoke about diet quality issues in aging populations. Stephen Barnes of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, discussed functional foods (i.e., foods with health benefits beyond what their traditional nutrients provide) and the challenge of bioavailability. He emphasized that not all functional foods, like soy, are necessarily alike with respect to their health-promoting benefits, depending on how they are processed. Luigi Fontana of Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, and the Italian National Institute of Health, Rome, Italy, discussed recent research on caloric restriction and is effects on longevity and age-associated diseases. Both Fontana and Tucker also addressed the issue of protein intake in older adults. Finally, Jim Kirkwood of General Mills discussed the importance of combining science with consumer desires when considering how to formulate foods that older consumers will actually purchase and eat. He emphasized the importance of understanding “what really matters to consumers” when developing and marketing food products, a theme that was revisited at length in the session on communication (see Chapter 6). The session ended with a panel discussion.

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