Why Not Just Consume Real Food
Becoming a Trend
Do you remember back when there were chia pets?
Food was just food. There was no xanthan gum, soy protein isolate, no red dye No. 40 or other mystery ingredients imported from the rain forests of the Amazon?
Well, chia has returned, big time (this time only the seeds, no pets). And it's just ordinary old food.
At a Natural Products Expo recently in Anaheim, Ca one could spend hours traversing the floors among 60,000 others. It's turned into the largest trade show of health food
in the entire world. The overwhelming theme was: What was old is now new all over again.
Your grandmother would instantly recognize many of these hot new trends: Foods grown by local area farmers. Skin products made from ingredients that don't contain nine syllables or begin with prefixes such as
dimethyl or phenol. Products available in
recyclable packages recycled that can also be composted. (Does anyone compost their baby diapers?)
In years gone by, the exhibit hall literally overflowed with bottles containing vitamins, mineral herb and mineral supplements. However the supplement segment area has shrunk.
"There is a mounting distrust" of anything that's synthetic, says New Hope Natural Media editor Carlotta Mast, the company which produces the Expo. "There is a driving idea to ‘Why not just consume real food.’" She believes this purification philosophy reflects in that shrunken supplement section: The amount of formulas containing multi-nutrients has begun to shrink, being out edged by single-ingredient vitamin D pills or omega-3s created out of pond-scum algae.
Here’s What Stood Out
Coconuts
Coconut flavor was once popular at a time when all kitchen appliances were avocado green or harvest gold . Now coconut is back. Among the numerous items, Coco'Mon by Ziggy Marley which is coconut cooking oil for cooking, just one of numerous coconut-based products among his Ziggy Marley Organics food line. Other companies are manufacturing coconut water, coconut palm sugar, dehydrated coconut for making your very own coconut water right at home (with no unfriendly to the earth plastic bottles needing to be recycled).
Healthier Snacks
Natural products makers want a part of the food grazing market. To replace of the long-established
Sunday NFL snacks of cheese nachos and soda, they are promoting more exotic water flavors and chips. These could very well become some of your favorite beverages: Metromint mint-flavored water, Blackwater, you guessed it, pitch black and well, tastes like black water, The water is infused using fulvic acid, an alleged health-enhancement. (So it's clear the market for miracle-supplements hasn't dropped dead yet.)
To go along with the non-sodas? There's Sweet-potato chips, bean chip, kale chips, banana chips any chip but corn which has become the new devil within the world of health food. Consumers want customary foods such as crackers and chips for snacking on at home although they want to feel less guilt over eating them, says spokeswoman at New Hope Natural Media, Heather Smith. They’re crunchy. They’re salty!! While the bean chips provide a pleasing and lingering feel to the mouth.
Corporate consciousness has become a huge sales point for the natural-food products business.
Naked Pizza’s is a new kind of frozen pizza contains agave fiber and pro-biotics in the crust with zero sugars in the sauce, the box is also made by a manufacturer that only uses recycled products.
Natural Baby Foods
Parents of today are passionate over their little ones learning to like vegetables and fruits. Businesses have been responding. There's Plum Organics with grab-and-go vegetable and fruit squeeze packs made from pureed food (like a blend of pears, purple carrots and blueberry) that babies can be spoon-fed with or drink.
"It’s all about familiarizing babies with flavors allowing them become foodies", Katie Sobel, the director of communication and marketing for Plum Organics insists. Not just plugging into the latest health trends: Plum has begun immersing some of its foods with Greek yogurt (which contains more protein than normal yogurt) with ancient grains such as quinoa (which has less food allergy problems and is easier to digest).
Chia Seeds
Those same seedlings you used spread over a clay figurine for creating the green Shrek are being employed as food products because they contain high omega-3 fat levels. You can buy Mamma Chia beverages, Fruit Chia bars, Crunchy Flax containing Chia cereal. Another company is hedging all bets with Chia Coconut granola which is a pair of trends made into one product.
Here’s an oddity
Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez, recent California-Berkeley business graduates are offering their "Back to Roots" growing kit to raise your very own mushrooms. They tool around the San Francisco Bay Area looking for used coffee grounds, the medium to grow mushrooms inside a box. ("We redirected over a million pounds of used coffee grounds ," Arora proudly said.)
Drink-up
Quite a smorgasbord. and it's just as well: One late afternoon shot of energy can give you the strength for making one more run across the huge exhibit floor. Bikram Balance, is a yoda drink with a blend of vegetables and fruits, with the chief aim to restore your electrolytes, Fruitasia, a brand new veggie and fruit energy shot, is promoted as containing
two servings of fruit and three servings of vegies' within a 3 fluid ounce serving.
Still Hot
A few of of the really big fads have continued on strong. gluten-free is booming; pro-biotics are growing;
The economy of Greece may be in the tank, however Greek yogurt is bringing in lots of money for a few businesses over here.
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