With health and nutrition becoming a major topic within the culinary industry, I thought it would be appropriate to take a look at some nutrition trends and what to look for when researching trends to follow. For me, a very interesting trend to look into would be the vegan trend. Every day you hear someone you know has gone vegan or that your favourite athlete is vegan. But what does it mean to be vegan? A vegan is someone who does not consume or use animal products. In theory that’s pretty easy, just don’t eat or use anything that comes from an animal. But a lot of people tend to have an issue with following the diet and lifestyle. That’s because in western culture we have so much processed food containing animals or animal products that it is almost impossible to hold a vegan lifestyle. There are many benefits from the vegan lifestyle if you are able to follow it though. In the article, 6 Science-Based Health Benefits of Eating Vegan by Alina Petre, she lists the factual benefits of going vegan. Petre lists, the diet is rich in nutrients, it helps with weight loss, lowers blood sugar and improves kidney function, may protect against cancer, lowers risk of heart disease, and reduces arthritis pain (Petre, 2016). So, if you are able to actually follow such a strict diet then it may be in your benefit to have a vegan diet. I for sure am going to look into some tasty vegan recipes now.
Along with the benefits of going vegan, I also want to explore the nutrition idea of intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting has become extremely popular over the last few years in the weight loss community for its accelerated weight loss results. It is the idea of only consuming calories during specific hours of the day and then fasting for the rest of them. An example of this would be allowing yourself to consume calories between the hours of 7am and 3pm. That would give you 8 hours of calorie consumption and 16 hours of fasting. The theory is that if you fast for prolonged periods you will start burning fat for energy which will help you loose weight faster. There are other benefits besides weight loss associated with this diet. In an article by Kris Gunnars, 10 Evidence-Based Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting, he provides us with more information about why this diet may be good for us. Gunnars said, intermittent fasting can help you loose weight and belly fat, reduce insulin resistance, reduce oxidative stress and inflammation, help prevent cancer and alzheimers, and it may extend your life span (Gunnars, 2016). This is all very interesting information. No where does it say you have to eat healthy when intermittent fasting, you can technically eat anything you want. So maybe we are not so unhealthy because of what we eat, maybe its when we eat and how much of it we eat.
As we progress as a society and learn more about health and nutrition we tend to care more about what we are putting in our bodies. I feel that currently and in the future nutrition will play a major role in the culinary industry when it comes to setting trends and creating a new norm. Even now we have more people reading labels and looking for a healthy option on the menu when going out to eat. As we learn more we will see an even greater shift in the culinary world towards healthy eating and creating a healthy sustainable lifestyle. Changes like this are important to the next generation because if we want our planet and resources to last we need to look for healthy, responsibly sourced food that is sustainable.
Now with all this new information and all these new trends to follow in nutrition, there are many people blogging and pretending to be experts but really have no proven information to present. You have to be careful when looking for information online, many websites might look legit and make claims to be healthy but really aren’t giving you accurate information. Luckily there are a few ways to make sure the information you’re getting is correct. One is to look at only credible websites. Gouvernment websites or university websites are a great place to start but even organizations like Heart & Stroke or Eat Right Ontario can be amazing sources for credible information on nutrition trends. Next look at the author. If they have any credible background in nutrition a quick internet search should show information about them and their work. Lastly but definitely not least you should always look at the references at the bottom of the websites. If none of the information is cited, then it shouldn’t be used. Let’s look at a quick comparison so you can see the difference. Here we have a posting by CTV news (CTV News Story ), a very reputable source for information. If you click on the link you will see the author, Ryan Flanagan a reputable author with a background in nutrition. Lastly, the sources he uses, a university study, gives even more credibility to this article. Now compare that to a posting from this random blog (Are modern plant-based diets and foods actually sustainable?). The website is not very known and shows no credibility in having properly sourced information. The author, Helen Breewood, has no scientific background when it comes to nutrition. Finally, the blog is not cited. There is no way of being able to tell if any of the information provided is factually correct. Getting information on nutrition from a website like this should be avoided at all costs.
I hope this first entry was insightful and look forward to sharing new and exciting information with you on the nutrition world.
Bibliography
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- Petre, A. (2016, September 23). 6 Science-Based Health Benefits of Eating Vegan. Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-diet-benefits.
- Gunnars, K. (2016, August 16). 10 Evidence-Based Health Benefits of Intermittent Fasting. Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/10-health-benefits-of-intermittent-fasting.
- Breewood, H. (2018, April 15). Are modern plant-based diets and foods actually sustainable? Retrieved from https://www.fcrn.org.uk/fcrn-blogs/helen-breewood/are-modern-plant-based-diets-and-foods-actually-sustainable.
- Flanagan, R. (2018, July 25). More than 3 million Canadians vegetarian or vegan: study. Retrieved from https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/more-than-3-million-canadians-vegetarian-or-vegan-study-1.4027606.
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