Looking Past the 2015 Food Trends and Beyond to a Positive Food Shift in 2016

While I was waiting for my cue on CTV News Channel the other day the story being broadcasted in my ear piece was relaying the impact of the inflation we saw as a society with a direct hit to certain food prices – meat and vegetables, being the primary expensive targets – to the point where grocery stores will probably not carry or sell certain vegetables if they will be too expensive for the consumer. Ok, so, I know some of you are still trying to find your daily love for vegetables, I think we have enough research to acknowledge the importance of including them in our daily diets – more fibre, vitamins, minerals, better balance, and overall more energy. Meat on the other hand – well, we know of the importance of protein with each meal to help satisfy us, keep us fuller for longer and spread out our caloric intake throughout the day, but what if we can’t afford all of this?

Obviously the wheels were turning in my brain when I heard this story and I knew there was opportunity to set the fingers to the laptop to give you some strategies. But, I have this thing of doing a little more research and reading before I set off to relay it all to you, and so I took a quick glimpse to my email which had the week’s top nutrition news in it including a story headline outlining “the nutrition trends of 2016” – really? Trends already? We haven’t even finished 2015, and I’m sorry, but I remember “trends” being associated with fashion. Since when has food been associated with being “trendy”? Right, now I remember – the fads – the people in the market to make a buck and draw you in with catchy marketing phases, too-good-to-be-true results, hot new nutrition products, and oh yes, the ever so popular marketing gimmick of attaching a celebrity to a product, fad, diet or whatever is in the news this day in age.

So let’s just break this down shall we? 2015 – what the heck happened? Hot- and cold-pressed juices, more saturated fat, less processed meats (wait, doesn’t that conflict that last piece), and oh yes – coconut oil STILL! I felt my head and brain moving like a ping pong ball on some days throughout the year to try to keep up with the headlines and my clients around me asking about this and that, and then the bottom line – trying to convince people of the limited research that was behind a lot of these “claims” and “stories” to try to then un-brainwash their belief into what those marketing gurus had done so well at in a short period of time. And now, the next 2016 “food trends”. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I love my career and what I am able to do, but boy it becomes difficult when you have to sift through another “heresay” article just to find out at the end of the article someone is endorsing a product for you to buy (did they do a good job throughout the article to sell you on the topic and make you click the button “BUY NOW”), and then trying to track down a bit of legitimate research to find that a study done in a sample of 30 rats brought about these results!

So, yes, I stay familiar with it all, but so grateful to know of my networks and journals that help to bring the science forward in the topics. And although inflation rates may be affecting the prices of vegetables and meat in the grocery store at this time, here are some great things to look forward to, starting today and heading into 2016:

• Meat prices going up? Don’t fret. Protein is important at every meal, but meat is not the only place to get that from. Besides fish (try for the smaller ones, lower on the food chain), tofu, cheese, yogurt, milk, nuts, seeds and nut butters as sources of protein, beans and legumes are also packed with protein as well as complex carbohydrates, fibre and important B-vitamins (amongst many others). 2016 is officially the International Year of the Pulses as deemed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. And pulses – beans and legumes – are one of Canada’s primary crops exported! Yup! Let’s not only eat our way to health, but sustain the very environment which we live in. Pretty great deal if you ask me. Pulses include lentils, peas, beans and chick peas. Including them in your diet will bring about a nutritious fix to any meal, not to mention helping to manage chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart conditions and cancer. And the piece about sustaining the environment – pulses have nitrogen-fixing properties which can contribute to increasing the fertility of the soil to yield greater production. Be adventurous this year with a few of these ideas:
  • Cook a large batch of beans from their dry form (healthier than buying in a can). You can cook on the stove top or in a slow cooker. Put 1-2 portions in the freezer for later use, and use one portion that week in salads, roasted, added to a pasta and vegetable dish or added to a chili
  • Substitute ground meat in tacos with black and white beans
  • Make a green pea pesto with walnuts, parmesan cheese, basil and olive oil. Use this as a spread in an egg sandwich or mix it with some ricotta cheese to add to a barley side dish.
• Food quality vs. quantity. We will continue to be focused on portions of this and that, amount of calories, grams of fat or carbohydrate and using different strategies to measure out our food. How about we make a shift to food quality. I’m pretty sure we are familiar that there is more quality in making your own quick whole wheat pasta with spinach and carrots with a light tomato sauce and topped with shrimp compared to the frozen ready-to-heat-and-go meal in the freezer section. So why do we continue to neglect what we know and go for convenience? We are all busy individuals living on this planet, and the more we recognize the importance of prioritizing our own health as opposed to leaving it in the hands of the marketers (who do not have your best health in mind), the more you will be able to get better at making the good choices for yourself. When you keep things simple as opposed to buying the little gadgets to “spiralize” your zucchini noodles every night or whatever else is on the market that just takes so much more time so that two weeks later you give up because it seems hopeless, you’ll be able to stay on track to make things lifestyle changes.
• The list of fermented foods to include in your diet will continue to grow as we learn more about the health benefits of these foods and how to enhance their benefits with the inclusion of prebiotic fibres. Kefir has been on the nutrition platform for a few years and will continue to be, along with yogurts, sauerkraut, miso, or Kombucha. Grocery stores and specialty food stores will bring in more of these products too because well, they’re “trendy” now. Be mindful of added ingredients in some of the products however (in there to act as shelf-stabilizers), as they will negate some of the health benefits of the probiotics and fibres.

Keep following to know the latest in nutrition research, and always remember if it’s too-good-to-be true, trying to sell something (often a quick fix product), or the ingredient lists are a mile long, it’s probably no better compared to the fresh fruits, vegetables, fish, beans, lean meats, eggs, cheese, yogurts and whole grains that your body was designed to run on! Optimal fuel for an Optimum You! Make that your #Hashtag for 2016!