Food & Nutrition Trends

Food is all about fresh these days and I, for one, am extremely happy about this trend!  Not only is food being fresh on the top trend list, but simplicity.  How can anyone deny that a shorter grocery list is easier?!  Meat is no longer the center piece on our plates, make room for salads (not often even green).  And, kick the carbon and the sodium and you'll be right on trend with the latest food fashion!  Clean eating has made it's way mainstream and I couldn't be happier about that.  No more being looked at as the crazy health food nut, you're just on point with your yogurt parfait and spinach chicken salad for supper!

What else works?  Natural beef from single family beef producers.  Sustainability, grow your own food!  I have a small garden and 8 chickens in my little coop in addition to our family farm (we raise cash grains and beef) and I'm thinking about putting up a small greenhouse to heat in the winter so we have fresh greens that are SO expensive through the winter months.  Higher quality foods and locally grown foods are the focus, along with better value.

Quick, easy, fresh, crock pot meals are HUGE with the number of working women out there whom want to have a nutritious meal to feed their family when they get home from work without having to cook it at the end of the day!  Heck, I LOVE my crock pot and I don't work outside the home.  If I still worked, I'd have something in my crock pot EVERY day!

What's out?

• rice cakes - these previously conceived "healthy foods" can be high glycemic index...as high as in the 90s!
• fat-free salad dressing - the regular dressings are a balanced food with healthy oils and the fat-free are contaminated with extra sugars or sweeteners and other not-so-good substitutes
• shark - used to be considered an amazing eat because of Omega-3 content, but it's mercury levels are through the roof....sub salmon for shark!
• refined and re-fortified grains - get your fiber and iron from your fruits, veggies and meats and skip the additives
• soda or any other sweetened beverage - sugar does bad things to you heart, skip the sweet stuff and go with water!
• grits - a staple food in the south that is often coated in butter and cream to make them taste good is made from processed corn and lacks much in nutritional value