It’s one thing to start off a new year thinking about ways to reduce your waistline or cholesterol. But have you given any thought to reducing your carbon footprint?

Several global CPG companies are trying to answer that question.

When people ask me about what it’s like to write for a food industry trade journal, I know exactly what I’m going to say - because it’s what R&FF Editor Bob Garrison told me when he offered me the job. What makes this industry really interesting is the people.

You’re either part of the problem or part of the (meal) solution. Pardon the play on words, but a visit to Bellisio Foods has me thinking about certain problems with retail meal solutions.

You say tomato. Now, they say cilantro. Hopefully by the time you read this, the whole thing will be sorted out.

While it’s pretty much a certainty that you are familiar with this summer’s “great salmonella caper,” and have read or heard enough about it to turn your stomach (literally), hear me out.

I have never been a spicy food kind of girl. Jalapenos? No thanks. Hot sauce? Never.

So, in some ways I was surprised when I visited OSI Group’s headquarters in Aurora, Ill., for this month’s cover story and learned from executives there that spicy foods are hotter than ever.

Ask me about “emerging markets” and chances are, I’ll talk about what’s new in ready-to-go packaged meals or side dishes.

My old roommate was the manager of a locally based gourmet chocolate company. We're talking gourmet, as in $30 for truffles flavored with ingredients such as chili powder, blood orange and rose water.

In a January 2008 report titled, Convenience Foods in the U.S.: Fresh and Frozen, Packaged Facts wrote that retailers - and refrigerated and frozen prepared convenience foods, in particular - will benefit greatly from busier consumer lifestyles, Americans’ growing concern with health and their interest in ethnic cuisines and flavors.

By now you've probably heard about Michael Pollan's book, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, published this January. In it, Pollan addresses a question that any American consumer might ask when faced with so much variety on supermarket shelves, "What should I eat?"

Fortune recently named Unilever USA - the subject of this month's cover story - as one of the nation's most respected consumer food product companies.