Food hopes for 2008.

Almost half (48 percent) of the adult females in the U.S. hope to eat more home-cooked meals this year. Home-cooking is part of an even wider hope of moving toward a healthy lifestyle which includes healthy foods and exercise, as well as more meals cooked at home. It may account for the new popularity of simpler, less pretentious restaurants featuring open pantries as well as kitchens. Almost 60 percent in our online survey hope to do more about being healthy in 2008. Men haven't gotten the health message to nearly the same degree.

* Hopes for doing more about health in 2008 are twice as widespread as hopes for doing more about the environment.

* From exercise to herbals, women in all age groups are more concerned with food, and hoping to do more to stay healthy than their male counterparts. One exception: Males hope to eat more fish.

* They are also more than three times as likely as young men to use more takeout and prepared foods in 2008.

* There is a huge gap, 3:1 in some age groups, between hopes to eat more home-cooked foods and hopes to shop more at supermarkets.

* Few young women are looking to diet soft drinks or artificial sweeteners to help them keep off unwanted pounds.

* The biggest hopes for eating more healthy foods come from the parents of teenagers. Organics are most important to those with children ages 6 to 12, while more parents of little children (under 6) hope to buy and use more cereal and chips.

* Older consumers express a sense of entitlement for indulgences that may have more to do with their extra poundage than the slowing metabolism that is usually blamed.

* More consumers hope to drink more tea than coffee.

* Fewer high-income shoppers hope to shop more in supermarkets. They do hope to buy more green products, and more lower-calorie products, than lower income shoppers, who hope to shop more at supermarkets and at Wal-Mart.

These Consumer Food Hopes for 2008 are from online research with 2013 adults conducted for The Consumer Network by Harris Interactive. The findings suggest that home-cooked meals tie in with hopes for healthier lifestyles which include healthy and lower-calorie foods, and stepped up exercise programs. High restaurant prices, an uncertain economy, oversized restaurant portions, and easy-cooking celebrities like Rachel Ray are also driving consumers to think more about fixing meals at home. How they are going to turn their hope into reality is a big question, because women under 45 have little interest in shopping at supermarkets.

Why hopes rather than expectations? Hopes are easier to express, and we have found them to be good indicators of what those choices will be in the near future. Most females hope to do more to stay healthy Health Related Categories Males Females Exercise/health activities 48% 58% Healthy Foods 42% 52% Home-cooked foods 40% 48% Fish 31% 29% Whole Grains 28% 34% Tea 22% 30% Yogurt 17% 27% Organics 16% 19% Herbals/Supplements 12% 18% Average (Mean) 28.9% 35.6% The "can do" attitude of today's women is reflected in what they hope to do, buy and eat in 2008. From exercise and healthy foods to herbals and yogurt, they are hoping to do 7 percent more of more kinds of things to stay healthy than their male counterparts.