5 Essential Nutrition, Diet and Wellness Trends for 2021

With greater awareness of our health needs, this year should be marked by more mindful choices in what, how, and when we eat

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After the year we’ve had, many people have completely reframed how they think about health and wellbeing, including their attitudes towards nutrition. Some diet fads seem to persist no matter what happens, but it seems that the pandemic has helped us gain a new, more wholesome perspective on dieting: we have finally remembered the core meaning of the word and its purpose.

To put it simply, a diet is nothing more than an eating regime, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be calorie-restrictive or aimed at weight loss.

With that refreshed idea at hand, more people will treat 2021 as the ideal opportunity to transform their eating habits and thus their overall wellbeing. How we perceive food, why we choose certain products, and how we actually eat will all be reflected in these trends to occupy the center of our attention this year. Let’s break them down and see how you can use them in your own life to simplify your habits and make wellness more seamless and easier to follow.

Focusing on Immune System Resilience

Our survival instincts are kicking in, so in 2021, as the pandemic still unravels and many people struggle with severe symptoms, we will all do our best to strengthen our natural defense mechanisms in order to ward off illness, or at least severe forms of illness.

So instead of sabotaging our own health and chances to battle the virus and other pathogens, we will gravitate towards wholesome meals that serve one main purpose: to keep our immune system resilient for the long haul. This means that more people will try to build their eating habits around nutrient-dense, diverse meals, instead of expecting supplements to do the trick.

Leveraging Healthy Food Delivery

What most people struggle with is not the lack of healthy eating options, but the lack of time to go grocery shopping and prepare those fresh meals every single day. Social distancing and this need to restructure our eating habits in a healthier way have brought about a new trend of healthy meal delivery.

Now, when people don’t have the time, energy, or creativity to make their own food, they can rely on meal plan delivery that offers healthy, balanced meals that cater to everyone’s nutritional needs. That means you can choose low-carb meals, or those that are gluten-free, all freshly made and organic. Since delivery services have flourished in the past year, and our need for healthy options has grown, this is a natural combination that will take over the world by storm.

Recognizing the Importance of Gut Health

Increased awareness of immune health has naturally nudged us towards our gut health, because our digestive tract and thus our microbiome plays a crucial role in our immune strength. However, even beyond immunity, the wellbeing of your gut has been linked to your skin health as well as your brain health.

With that knowledge, more people will start refining their nutrition to include more prebiotics and probiotics to stimulate gut health. It will also define that we’ll strive to reduce, such as alcohol, sugar, and too many processed foods that disturb the natural balance of our microbiota.

Mindfulness in Our Eating Patterns

We have become accustomed to leading fast-paced lives, which might seem practical from one standpoint, but entirely exhausting and stressful from another. As we’ve been pushed into isolation and social distancing, this year will be a little more “enlightened” by our desire to connect in more meaningful ways and to savor the simplest activities in life, including our regular meals with our families.

So instead of eating and succumbing to a slew of distractions such as the TV or scrolling down your newsfeed, you can embrace a more mindful approach to eating and engage with those sharing the meal with you. In a way, single-tasking and mindfulness in how we eat will help us enjoy our food, recognize when we’re full, avoid unnecessary overeating, and truly enjoy flavors more than ever.

Growing Your Own Goodies

Attending to our diet is no longer just a means to a better physique or losing a few pounds – it is a way to reconnect with Mother Nature and to de-stress. How? By growing our own food and creating our own little indoor and outdoor gardens. We now have the tools and the skills to buy and grow our own herbs, spices, as well as veggies and fruit, and then infuse every meal with these home-grown goodies.

Gardening gives us a direct connection to nature and helps us grow our appreciation for food, which is something we’ve lacked for years of spending our time in supermarkets, buying plastic-wrapped food. It’s also a perfect activity for bonding with other family members, and a soothing activity to detox from our hectic lives, while we simultaneously contribute to leading a healthier existence.

With more awareness of our health needs and hopefully more wisdom when it comes to listening to our own body, this year should be marked by more mindfulness and careful choices in what, how, and when we eat. Add to that, we will see more people treating nutrition as part of a more holistic approach to wellbeing, as opposed to an isolated solution. A wholesome diet has always been the pillar of a healthy life, but this year, perhaps our mindsets will allow us to take it to a whole new level.

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You may also enjoy reading One Diet Doesn’t Fit All: Discovering the Diet that’s Best for You by Ocean Robbins