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Health/Nutritional News

13 Best Food Trends for 2013

Improve your Balance
While calories deserve attention, a balance of your macronutrients—carbs, protein, and fats—will provide you with better energy. And better energy (think rolling hills instead of peaks and valleys!) is essential for long-term health and wellness. Are you choosing the right well-balanced foods? Find out as our favorite superfoods battle it out in Health-Food Face Off. (Search: What is a superfood?)

Plant-based Diets
The verdict is in: a plant-based diet is the healthiest diet for us all, including for the longevity of a healthy planet. Plants provide integrated health power that can’t be replicated by any pill or animal product. That doesn't mean we can’t or shouldn’t consume those: it just means we need to make plants the base of our diets

The Next Pill to Pop
First there were fiber supplements, followed by probiotics (read about the surprising benefits of probiotics). Now, meet digestive enzymes! Thank goodness for them, since proper digestion—the breakdown of food into usable nutrients—improves energy, enables weight loss, heals inappropriate inflammation, and reduces risk of disease. I call digestive enzymes the “personal assistants” for your digestive tract

Going Digital
Whether it’s an app that lets you to track your intake and activity or one that decodes a food label, you can keep tabs on any aspect of your health digitally (if you’re not sure where to start, download these 5 Best Food Apps). They're more than just handy: digital health solutions empower us to take charge of our own health through education and accountability.

Goodbye, GMOs!
It seems intuitive that we all operate better when we consume nature, rather than chemistry lab projects. The numbers are beginning to reflect that: more than 6 million Californians voted for Proposition 37, a ballot measure that would have required the labeling of GMO foods. Though it failed to pass in November, the real win is that food companies see that people want foods and supplements with ingredients that their bodies recognize naturallly. Labeling will likely occur this year—either on a state-by-state basis or nationally, should the government choose to courageously defend our right to make healthier choices—but even if it doesn't, more companies will choose to use non-GMO ingredients and become non-GMO Project verified.

Organic Greens
I predict we'll eat and drink more of these alkalinizing, cleansing foods this year, as access to frozen and fresh organic greens has increased. Mega stores and international chains are introducing organic greens to the masses, and the media has followed suit. If organic isn’t available, eating greens is still a great choice, but skip the non-organic green juices. Juicing and paying for chemicals is so last year

A Superfood Spectrum
This will be the year when we finally realize that one food is not more "super" than another in the same category. Dietitians, chefs, farmers, marketers, and our personal palates will make compelling pitches for every food found in nature, and this is the year to celebrate them all.

Fermentation Fever
When we let nature work on food a little longer, amazing things happen in terms of taste and nutrient availability. Recently at The Bent Brick in Portland, Oregon, I enjoyed pickled strawberries—yes, you heard that right—and so should you! Fermentation help reduce gas-creating potential. Beyond fruit, sprouting beans at home can be a great way to engage kids in the kitchen. It's a science project you can feel good about eating

Our New Favorite Word
Alkaline is this year’s hot new phrase. Why? When we eat and drink foods that enable an alkaline pH in our lower digestive tract, we improve our digestion and skin. Alkaline foods also help flatten our bellies and reduce the risk of disease. Choose weak acids like lemons and limes, pick plants over animals, add more greens, and reduce your sugar, coffee, and wine intake. The best news? If you focus on alkaline options most of the time, you can sometimes say yes to the more acidic stuff without veering too far off your health path.

Our New Favorite Word
Alkaline is this year’s hot new phrase. Why? When we eat and drink foods that enable an alkaline pH in our lower digestive tract, we improve our digestion and skin. Alkaline foods also help flatten our bellies and reduce the risk of disease. Choose weak acids like lemons and limes, pick plants over animals, add more greens, and reduce your sugar, coffee, and wine intake. The best news? If you focus on alkaline options most of the time, you can sometimes say yes to the more acidic stuff without veering too far off your health path.

Eat Whole Foods
Just because we've created machines that can rip and pull apart foods, we don’t really need them. The natural structure of food is magical, whether it’s the natural fat in dairy, beans, or seeds, the carbohydrates in protein-rich food, or the “lesser” amount of antioxidants in a fruit versus a powder of extracted antioxidants. Nearly every nutrition research study finds that our bodies do better when we consume whole foods, rather than pieces or parts

Feed Kids Like People
Here's to a new, growing trend: from the time of their first bite, kids should consume “people” food. That means early and frequent exposure to variety of tastes and textures, as well as whole foods versus kid-ified parts. What’s good for the goose really is best for the gander from our first to our last bites.

Become a Qualitarian
Nothing beats the importance of the quality of what you put into your body. But there is also no “perfect” or “best” when it comes to quality. Being a Qualitarian means choosing the better quality option so that your body gets what it recognizes most easily and, as a result, works most efficiently. Be a Qualitarian, and the food world is your oyster—if you like oysters, that is.