Cyndi O’Meara of Changing Habits – Australia’s favourite controversial nutritionist – has shared her take on the trends we’re likely to be seeing in 2015.
A leading expert in the health and wellness arena and having worked in the industry for more than 30 years, O’Meara believes supporting local, eating seasonally, valuing functional real foods, and breaking the stranglehold of breakfast cereals, will be the major shifts for 2015.
People will change from reading nutritional labels for calories, fat, salt and sugar and start looking at the ingredients of foods. There’ll be less food consumed with origins in laboratories, in preference to food that our grandmothers would have in their pantries.
Local, seasonal foods become the focus due to growing concern over climate change. Regional farmers markets become more popular and held mid-week too.
Functional real foods will overtake the chemical supplement food industry. People will seek out foods high in vitamin C such as camu camu and kakadu plum, instead of popping a vitamin C tablet made from glucose, fermented and GM processes along with fillers.
Fish oil will trend downwards as people understand it’s not an ethical, sustainable product. More plant-based omega 3’s such as Inca Inchi and flax will increase in sales.
Salt, fat and sugar will not be seen as the evils of modern times, but rather Himalayan Salt, good quality fats like cold-pressed nut and seed oils and natural sugars like unprocessed rapadura sugar and honey will be pantry staples.
The strangle hold breakfast cereals have on the market will slowly decrease as more people realise they’re refined, laced with dubious ingredients, high in sugar, hybridised, GM grains and fortified with isolated nutrients.
The Paleo movement will move away from being seen as a strict diet to being more about a way of life and going back to our bodies’ evolutionary needs. These include real food, the importance of sleep, sunlight, connection, movement and a healthier lifestyle.
Private education for nutrition and health will be in demand and one of the hottest professions to be in, an the specialist believes there will be a shift in food service to hospitals, retirement homes and even tuck shops as more people become informed about food and its consequences for health.
