Healthy Food Trends
What are they based upon?

What determines healthy food trends? It used to be based on food fads or whatever food product was marketed and advertised the most successfully.

But these days, healthy food trends parallel the growing public awareness of what type of foods actually contribute to improving health - and reflect the demand for such food.

As consumers, we are becoming increasingly aware of the relationship between food, nutrition and health. We are demanding healthier, more nutritious food. What does that mean? In a nutshell, it means food that is minimally processed because processing removes the nutrients from the food to a greater or lesser degree.

Directly related to this are healthy food trends such as:

• Organically grown versus conventionally grown food.

  This trend reflects growing awareness that pesticides and chemical additives really aren't harmless; they accumulate in our bodies and become overwhelming. There are plenty of sources of toxins in the environment that combined, add up to overwhelming the body's natural ability to cleanse and detoxify itself.

  Food that is organically grown doesn't contain these toxins. A sign of the increasing demand for healthier food is reflected in the growing popularity of obtaining locally grown produce at farmer's markets.

• Healthy food trends are also based upon our understanding and rejection of previously-held nutrition myths.

  For example, the old hysteria about avoiding all fats because they supposedly led to heart disease and obesity gave birth to the trend of everyone believing that low-fat/no-fat foods were very healthy. This has been proven to be untrue.

  Fats (including cholesterol) have vital roles in the body. It's actually the highly processed food, especially carbohydrates, that leads to poor health like obesity, diabetes, heart attacks, ad infinitum.

  The only fats that are unhealthy are known as "trans" fats, which are "processed" by man. The trend is reversing in favor of learning and consuming good, healthy fats, discussed in the types of dietary fat article on this site. If you've ever wondered what the hell "omega 3s" are, check this out!

  For more nutritional myths that are being debunked and making way for healthier food trends, check out this excellent article on common food and nutrition myths.
• Most trends of any kind are accompanied with new terms and healthy food trends are no different. One term that is growing in popularity in the healthy foods arena is the term "functional foods."

  Functional foods are not new kinds of foods at all. In fact, the term "functional food" (sometimes called "medicinal food") is defined as "any healthy or fictional food claimed to have a health-promoting or disease-preventing property beyond the basic function of supplying nutrients.¹"

  An example of a functional food would be yogurt, due to its benefit to the intestinal tract.

  Fruit and vegetables are awesome functional foods because they are rich sources of digestive and metabolic enzymes that the body requires to break down and actually utilize food - plus other health benefits not commonly known. See the articles on fruit nutrition facts and vegetable nutrition facts and you'll find out specifically what functions of the body they assist!

You've probably heard the term "superfood" too. Guess what? It's the same thing as a "functional food" - a food that is full of nutrients and benefits health in many ways.

What many consumers are realizing is that virtually all food that Mother Nature provides is actually "functional food."

We're finally recovering the lost knowledge and understanding that food is actually medicine - as described by Hippocrates himself! Hippocrates was an ancient Greek physician and is known today as the "father of modern medicine."

I'm sure you get the idea. Modern healthy food trends are based upon growing public awareness and understanding of the relationship between food, nutrition and health.

Cheers,
BB

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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_food

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