4 Reasons You Don't Need The Latest Food Trend to Be Healthy
Food trends are always changing. You never know what might be the “next big thing.” There’s matcha, collagen, maca powder, acaí, bee pollen, cacao powder, goji etc. The list goes on and on.
Marketing, and social media have led people to believe that these products will make your life perfect. For so many reasons this is bogus and can even be really harmful.
Below are some reasons why we don’t need to buy into the food trends:
Food is just food. There is no magic ingredient. If there was we would all know about it and it would probably be curing cancer or something impressive like that. Since such a food doesn't exist, we can only rely on what we know for sure. Food sustains life and each and every one of us needs it to survive. Some foods are more nourishing to the body physically, some more nourishing emotionally. Both have a place and hold value but in the end, it's all just food and gets digested and absorbed into our bodies the same way.
We don't live in a vacuum. Most of the time we are eating foods in combination with other ones, and having several meals throughout the day. Life and eating are not static. The human body is so incredible and knows how to perfectly store, use, release and create exactly what we need to survive based on whatever we've eaten. As long as we give our bodies something to work with, it can figure out a way to keep us going efficiently.
Health is about more than nutrition. We shouldn't define health as simply as just how "good" or "bad" our nutrition is. So many other things go in to it. Food plays a role, yes, but so does our physical, social, emotional and spiritual health. To say that nutrition is the only thing on the table is to ignore many other areas of our lives. We are complex people, so our definition of something like health cannot be fit into a tiny little nutrition box and left at that.
We don't need to become something more than we already are. At their core, these products are sending a message that we are not good enough the way we are and we should want to change something about ourselves. This message gets all wrapped up in diet culture and the belief that we should need to change ourselves to meet some vague standard society places on us. It's just not true. The companies selling these products don't care about that. They'll do and say anything to to sell us on the idea that we NEED this stuff and that it will change our lives. If we are rooted in the knowledge that we actually don't need to change, we can save our selves a whole lot of stress...and money!
One last thing to keep in mind..
It is OKAY to eat the trendy foods. If you feel like trying some of these foods, go for it! Many restaurants and cafés are making creative and fun meals and snacks out of a lot of these ingredients. Just know that the energy balls are not going to change your life and that you don't need it to make you into a better person. Eat it and enjoy it because it will nourish you just like a chocolate chip cookie would and that's great!