Top 10 health food trends for 2011

Cookwork's Perspective

With the new year starting, it is no surprise that many consumers will start dramatic new diets and search for healthy options in dining while recovering from the holiday feasting.   Restauranteurs will wait for the most popular trends to emerge and then create menu items that consumers will embrace.  This healthy eating trend is very consumer driven and the best thing to do is to keep an eye out for which factors customers will gravitate towards.

Here's To A Healthy New Year

The American Dietetic Association’s 2010 Food & Nutrition Conference offered a good glimpse of what’s hot and what’s not in health foods, and what will rule next year. Here are the top 10 health food trends for 2011. Read more...

Here is a preview of our favorites in no particular order:

Gourmet gets a makeover

Imported food flown in from afar is so early-2000s. The new gourmet is anything in season, from the United States and grown humanely. Raisins brought sexy back stirred into delicate shortbread cookies and crab salad, while sustainable, domestic farm-raised barramundi fish garnered media attention.

Simple ingredients

Janet Helm, MS, RD, the blogger behind Nutrition Unplugged, says the two big buzzwords are "clean" and "conscious." Foods manipulated to be fat-free, sugar-free and artificially colored have lost their luster and consumers will seek out foods with ingredients found in the pantry, not from a lab experiment.

Gluten-free goodness?

The popularity of gluten-free diets has made people wonder, "Should I go gluten-free, too"? While traditional doughnuts and cookies offer few nutrients, their wheat-less cousins proudly tout "gluten-free" on the label. Nutritionists like Jenna Bell-Wilson, PhD, RD, CSSD, blogger for Eat Right Around Chicago, question the overall nutritional profile of these foods, however, urging people to consider more than just this one quality.  Read more...

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Source: SheKnows.com Health & Wellness

Photo: Cookwork Archive