The year 2020 brought challenges and sudden changes for many people worldwide, with people’s everyday habits dramatically shifting alongside priorities. Many are now focusing on their health and wellness, including what they eat—changing the food and health culture.
That said, here are the latest food trends that experts predict to take over in 2021.
Transparency for Trust
As consumers become more conscious of their purchases, it’s natural for them to have several thoughts, such as wondering where their food comes from, its impact on the surroundings, and what is in the food. All these pave the food and nutritional trend of demanding transparency in food products and the whole food systems. So, in turn, products with stories have increased in appeal. However, each ingredient used should have a clear purpose. Processing foods that can reduce the number of ingredients used is also another area of innovation.
Recipes with multiple functions like oat flour retaining the nutritional benefits of oats with additional aspects like improving the improved emulsifying capabilities also help this trend. After all, getting enough to eat should be enough for the cat—and everyone.
Sustainable Nutrition
People are becoming aware of the surroundings and opting for eco-friendly options for everyday things. Nowadays, people looking for dental implant services ask for options such as zirconium dental implants promoting waste reduction and sustainability. For them, this simple act brings environmentally conscious choices forward, just like their preference for organic or sustainable food options. With more people becoming more environmentally conscious, sustainable nutrition has become the ‘key’ to the future of the planet and part of many companies’ strategies in the food and beverage sector.
This trend refers to a person’s ability to provide positive and well-balanced nutrition solutions, helping maintain good health while avoiding compromising future generations’ ability to meet their nutritional needs. All these mean an improved focus on sustainable farming and sourcing. This trend also underlines the importance of understanding the effect of functional ingredients improving the sustainability of products.
For instance, reducing sugar and replacing it with taste modulators can improve the overall nutrition of a product and reduce the number of raw materials required to make it—creating healthy and nutritious food responsibly.
Practicing Proactive Health Approaches
Following a healthy and balanced diet to enhance daily life instead of focusing on fixing health issues once it already happened is what proactive health is all about—dominating the last couple of years and this start of the new decade. However, thoughts such as food as medicine, and superfoods are the main focus of proactive health in 2021. Improved immunity, mental, energy, and digestive health are the most common health benefits people search for from foods and beverages.
Digital Health
There’s been a seismic shift in how healthcare gets delivered as technology changes the traditional primary care experience. The role of the family doctor is disrupted—introducing the dramatic increase of digitization of health services. COVID-19 triggered this trend’s sudden acceleration, making the focus for this trend in 2021 even bigger.
Mood and Mental Wellness
Experts have long associated food with a person’s emotional well-being. After all, it’s what people go to for better comfort, celebrations, and socialization. Recently, there’s an interest in the scientific role that people’s diet can affect their emotional and mental health. Although it’s a difficult feat, recent discoveries like botanical ingredients such as herbs having strong, healthy halos for mood are paving the pathway for this trend to grow in the new decade.
Flexitarianism
With more advocates promoting veganism, you’d think most people would be vegan or vegetarians by now. However, convincing meat-eaters to change suddenly can be challenging—but meeting them somewhere down the middle can be easier to achieve. That’s why instead of trying to persuade omnivores of ditching meat and animal products entirely, there will be a trend pushing to reduce the intake of animal products, known as flexitarianism.
A flexitarian diet is where you swap meat- or animal-based meals with plant-based counterparts every week, decreasing the portion of animal byproducts in their recipes and adding more plant-based ingredients.
Domination of Plant-Based Products
Since plant-based trends have become the mainstay in the worldwide food economy, plant-based food and drinks are now taking over. Although eating ‘plant foods’ like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains have been the most challenging dietary recommendations for most people to achieve, this trend has changed that—providing a way to incorporate plants in everyone’s favorite dishes.
As health and wellness become optimized and more personalized, it has become personal—paving the pathway to food and nutrition trends surrounding concepts of maintaining sustainability while offering better overall quality for long-term, prosperous health.
