Abstract
Much has been written about nutrition communication, how it should be framed, targeted, structured, and worded for greatest effect. Relatively little has been written about possible pitfalls-errors in communicating that may lead to public confusion instead of understanding. In this article, the authors lay out, in their usual irreverent style, what may be regarded as the 7 greatest errors in nutrition communication, focusing primarily on the last of these, mistiming messages-especially delivering messages too late for them to be effective. Pointing out a gap between expectations of and actual consumer behavior, the article discusses the importance of understanding consumer psychology and of effectively timing communications-both nutrition and food safety messages-so that information is delivered when consumers are ready to receive and use it.