Today’s human society provides to food consumers many options that involve difficult decisions. Disoriented and stressed by contradictory messages of mass media and by the warnings of being as slim as possible, a modern consumer gets confused and shows a tendency towards losing his traditional habits. Still, most experts suggest that the adoption of a healthy food behavior, based on minimally processed natural products, may contribute to the development of a sustainable food system. The study aims to design the food profile of Romanian consumers by presenting the underlying factors of a balanced diet. The conducted marketing study was of quantitative nature, in which, a face-to-face survey was used. The questionnaire was applied to individuals aged over 18 years old, and the tool used for collecting data was the structured questionnaire applied to a sample of 1185 Romanian respondents. In this study, the following methods of analysis were used: factor analysis, cluster analysis, and structural equation modeling. The research results present the main aspects underlying the food products classification, the clustering of Romanian consumers by their interest in healthy diet, and the relationships between specific variables influencing the healthy food habits. These results have shown the need for supporting educational campaigns targeted at Romanian consumers aimed to develop healthy food habits that could create conditions needed to reshape food supply, and implicitly, to contribute to the development of environmental sustainability.

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The Romanian traditional pattern of food consumption as a whole is no longer a reference point in shaping a healthy and sustainable food behavior due to the growing discrepancies between the return to traditions and the constraints of sustainable development, so the aim of this study is to provide solutions for reshaping the food pattern by incorporating the principles of sustainable diet. The research conducted is based on qualitative data and the semi-structured interview was used as method of data collection from a sample of 21 Romanians traditional food consumers. The study led to a typology of respondents that combines two consumption orientations, “healthy” and “convenience”, with two attitudes towards traditional diet, “hedonism” and “conformism”. Although respondents do not completely reject the idea of flexitarianism, they showed the tendency for overconsumption of meat-based traditional foods and a weak concern for environmental sustainability. For these reasons, a set of recommendations for a new model of sustainable diet for Romanian population, focused on the relationship between traditionality, sustainability, and health, was put forward. The research findings show the need for supporting nutritional education programs and extensive information campaigns targeted at Romanian consumers to encourage the adoption of flexitarian style and the switch to a more sustainable diet in the near future.

Currently, most countries have to deal with multiple discrepancies that have arisen between the constraints of sustainable development and the return to traditions, involving food producers, as well as consumers, aspects that are also easily noticed in Romania. Thus, the main purpose of this study was to assess the nutritional quality of the Romanian traditional diet using a nutrient profiling method based on the Nutri-Score algorithm, applied to several representative Romanian traditional dishes. Because this algorithm has the capacity to highlight the amount (%) of fruits, vegetables, and nuts from a certain dish, it might be considered an indicator of the sustainable valences of the selected meals. The results showed that the traditional menus do not correspond to a balanced and sustainable eating behavior; thus, it is recommended to improve the Romanian pattern of food consumption and to ensure its sustainable basis. In order to achieve this goal, we propose the development of a new paradigm of the contemporary Romanian food style incorporating three main directions of action: acceptance, adaptation, and transformation.

An evolved form of the capitalist system, consumer capitalism proposes a new way of life, centered on material values, in which consumption tends to become an end, but also a value in itself, which is a culmination of hedonism. In this context, we can speak of a new form of culture, the culture of consumption, in which consumption becomes the center of gravity of human existence. In other words, the new capitalist system produces consumers and a culture of consumption. The central objective of the present research, which is qualitative in nature, was to capture the main features of consumer society in Romania, with a focus on understanding the extent to which the new generation of Romanian consumers is influenced by consumerism. We set out to answer the question of whether consumption is a central value for young consumers in Romania and, in context, how they relate to the basic elements of consumer culture. The target group of the research were students from two Master's programs at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest, from which a sample of 27 people was drawn. The method used for the investigation was the structured online interview. From the analysis and interpretation of the data it emerged that, in the case of young Romanian consumers, compared to other age groups, there is a different structure and dynamics in terms of consumption, with the predominance of satisfying complex needs of an emotional nature, such as the search for and expression of one's own identity or the differentiation of social status, to the detriment of satisfying primary consumption needs. The younger generation of consumers also tends to seek out the 'new' as they move from American-style globalization to multicultural globalization.