Functional Food Trends and the Rise of the Conscious Consumer
Conscious Consumerism
The conscious consumer has been evolving over the last decade. Innovation in the health and wellness space started years ago when we first saw the role out of in-home work out equipment, which has evolved into tech enabled products such as the Peleton, and the Tonal machine. By combining workout equipment with working knowledge users are able to customize their routines to enhance specifics. The idea here is that consumers are now able to take a physical object such as a work out machine, combine it with intelligence about their bodies and specific workouts to produce a choice on what they want to work on, or improve.
Let's take a look at how this is evolving in the Food and Beverage space. As consumers to look to have more agency in their lives, they are becoming increasingly aware of how the foods they put into their bodies affect their mood, stress and cognitive performance. Non-GMO and Gluten Free products have enticed consumers to look further down the ingredient list of their favorite snacks to really understand what they are putting into their bodies. And this is where the Conscious Consumer is evolving. Food is no longer just a substitute to pass time, or fill an urge. Consumers want to know they are putting their dollars towards companies who are transparent in their ingredient list, honest about the health benefits and how a product might affect someone who suffers from IBS or has Gluten Allergies.
As Non-GMO and Gluten Free products become more standard consumers are looking at food to serve a more functional purpose in their lives, including aiding in their gut health, improving their cognitive performance, helping regulate their sleep and even improve their stress levels. Food as a thing to just be consumed is evolving into an on-the-go snack that will help us transcend our functional boundaries.
Functional Food
Food as we know it is changing as consumers opt for ingredients that aid in health benefits beyond stapled nutritional value. Functional food can be best understood as ingredients that help in lowering blood sugar, anti-inflammatory properties, improved gut health.
Conscious Consumption has evolved from the non-GMO, gluten free era, where consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of what they put into their bodies and how it effects their overall bodily and cognitive performance. Traditional food staples such a cookies and chips are known to bog people down due to the high sugar content, food coloring, and chemical additives that are known to cause cancer and slow cognitive performance and bodily function.
2023 and beyond will show a rise in conscious consumption as people look to integrate ways to improve their health while also choosing something pleasant tasting to consume. This growing trend lends itself to the savy consumer who is becoming increasingly health conscious and os looking for ways to improve their overall health, cognitive performance and wellbeing. Lookout for these emerging functional food trends as they continue to emerge
Adaptogens
Adaptogens are natural herbs known to help balance the production of stress hormones such as cortisol and serotonin. When we don't have enough serotonin in our bodies this can affect our mood bringing on anxiety and stress. 90% of our serotonin receptors are in the gut. Gut bacteria play an important role in your microbiome, and any disruptions can lead to increased mental and physical stress.
Adaptogens help balance our gut microbiome helping to improve our overall mood, focus, anxiety and can generally be described to work as natural antidepressant due to its adenosine concentration, an organic compound that occurs naturally in all the cells of the body and one of the four nucleoside building blocks of RNA.
Since consumers have been taking an active stance in the role stress plays in their lives and looking for ways to incorporate these changes, innovation in the space has been widespread as we see not only adaptogen supplements emerge but as well as drinkable powders and foods. some examples include;
Magic Mind, touted as the world's first productivity shot. An adaptogen, nootropic drink packed into a small shot sized vial. It is filled with all of the good stuff to help create a balanced state of being while improving energy and cognitive function. Its size makes it easy to carry and its potent contents immediately alert your senses to help you fire on all cylinders. Instead of reaching for a sugar filled sports drink, the future will be to reach for a adaptogen fill no-sugar-added substance that will help level off those mid-day stress levels, rather than add to them. Think helpful, not hurtful
Nootropics
A common theme between adaptogens and nootropics is the sparingly use of mushrooms. Although only a few mushrooms are adaptogens, all nootropics are mushrooms. Nootropics help with improved cognitive performance such as learning ability, protects the brain from various physical or chemical imbalances, increases the body's ability to control muscle contractions and relaxations which help improve attention, memory, executive function, creativity and motivation.
Medicinal mushrooms have been shown to improve anxiety and depression in patients and improve cognitive function, due to their unique ability to act "bidirectionally", meaning they can stimulate or reduce physiological processes in the body depending on what's needed. Nootropics are naturally occurring compounds in different types of non-psychoactive mushrooms.
Ways in which medicinal mushrooms have exerted effects on the brain and neurological system include stimulated the repair and growth of nerve cells, help fight neuroinflammation that lead to degeneration of brain cells, boost the utilization of oxygen in the brain and nervous tissue, can mimic serotonin in the brain to support mood and sleep.
Modern science has enabled us to take extract the benefits of nootropics from medicinal mushroooms and find ways to incorporate these extracts into types of edible gummies, chocolates and drinks. Conscious consumers are now expressing a desire to incorporate micro doses of medicinal mushrooms in their foods and beverages as a way to increase their daily cognitive performance. Imagine a future where reaching for your mid-day snack would help you increase your cognitive performance so you could continue performing at a high level for a longer period of time, instead of experiencing being bogged down from another high sugar content snack.
The future of snacking will embrace a way to keep your cognitive performance peaking, rather than experiencing a mid-day slump.
Innovation in the space has already taken foot, as speciality brands emerge to find fun ways of incorporating your daily dose of nootropics.
Four Sigmatic coffee that is made with Lion's Mane and Chaga mushroom. Four Sigmatic is a perfect example of how nootropic forward brands are finding ways to incorporate nootropics and adaptogens into products or routines we already do.
Balanced Tiger is another example, touted as a functional mushroom protein bar. Packaged as an on-the-go, ready to eat snack packed with nootropic complexes to help maintain balance in your cognitive performance, focus, energy and immunity. This is another example of how brands are innovating on products as a way to incorporate nootropics and better for you ingredients into products we already use and consume, expect to see more of it!
FODMAP
Foods Low in FODMAP help in gut health and relieve IBS symptoms. FODMAP is an abbreviation for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols. Fancy words to describe short-chain carbohydrates (sugars) that the small intestine absorbs poorly, leading to gut distress after eating them. The distress one might feel after eating these types of sugars could include anything from cramping, diarrhea, constipation, bloating, gas and flatulence.
Foods that contain these sugars include everything from high fructose corn syrup and sweeteners such as molasses and agave to traditional cereals and wheat based products such as bread and crackers. Dairy-based products such as milk, yogurt and ice cream. Also some known vegetables such as onion and garlic along with some fruits such as Apples, Apricots and any types of canned fruit, dried fruit or fruit juice.
Irritable bowl syndrome also known as IBS is an inflammatory disorder that happens in the gut when a poorly managed diet, lifestyle and stress get the best of someone. It's the body's response to abnormal gut microbiome known to cause distress such as abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea and constipation.
Examples of brands innovating in the Low FODMAP food space include BelliWelli, a brownie and snack brand reinventing the same great tasting snacks without the added headache of bloated digestion and upset stomach pains.
Pre-Biotic and Pro-Biotic
Kombucha has been on the rise in recent years propped up with its gut health benefits. Increasing awareness around how the gut impacts brain function is leading more people to want to take pre and probiotics as a way to improve their health. Kombucha is literally a probiotic bill in a drink.
This trend will continue to evolve into food. Since probiotics require an acidic environment to thrive it is unlikely we will see this in many foods. An alternative would be to use properties of prebiotics such as cinnamon, ginseng and licorice, all of which contain bacteria that support the immune system and can be easily added to a packaged or baked good.
While probiotics continue to thrive in the beverage space, expect to see this category expand into alcohol with added probiotics, a continuation of these fermented drinks lends to the idea that some brands will start to experiment by adding adaptogens and nootropics for an enhanced gut friendly experience.
Example of popular probiotic drinks lining the grocery stores these days include Synergy, Health- Ade, Wind Tonic and Kevita, to name a few.
Superfoods
Superfoods are mostly plant based foods that are known to be dense in nutrients known to be good to ones health. Common super foods are found in blueberries, eggs, green tea, dark leafy greens, nuts seeds and legumes. These common superfoods have powerful nutrients such as antioxidants that help ward off diseases, promote heart health, weight loss and improved energy levels while reducing the effects of aging.
The conscious consumer wants to have the health benefits of these superfoods but does not want to stop to do the cooking. Because of this, emerging brands are finding ways to incorporate the nutritional components of these superfoods into on-the-go, ready to eat health conscious snacks.
One growing brand called 8 Greens had developed a lollipop packed with all of the nutritional compounds found in eight real dark leafy greens, including, Kale, Aloe Vero, Wheat Grass, Barley Grass to name a few. This small but easy to snack on lollipop packs all of your daily dose of greens into a small easy to
No food coloring
It has now been proven that artificial food dyes are liked to hyperactivity, behavioral changes such as irritability and depression, hives and asthma, and tumor growth. Also known to increase inflammation and disrupts the functioning of the immune system.
Big players in the food business continue to add these harmful additives to foods in order to entice our tastebuds. The additive known as Red 40 or Allura Red on the ingredients list, is the most commonly used food dye in popular snacks and drinks such as Skittles, Doritos and Pepsi. In fact, American Doritos are covered in artificial dyes made from petroleum, Red 40, Blue 1 and Yellow 5. And the most common foods found with Red 40 dye include every day snacks such as soft drinks, energy drinks, sports drinks, jello, gummy snacks, most cereals, fruit bars, hamburger helper, and even kraft macaroni and cheese.
The No food coloring trend is piggy backing off of the uptick conscious consumption we are seeing across the food and beverage sector. Instead of eating a snack or having a drink because it looks and tastes good, consumers also want to know they are eating something healthy, and if it wont help improve their health, it at least wont hurt it.
Brands innovating in this space include Unreal Snacks, who are reinventing all of our favorite candies from M&Ms (including the peanut filled ones) Snickers, Reese's Pieces and Almond Joys and replacing all of the food coloring used in traditional brand names with natural coloring. Eliminating the toxic dye from our chocolate indulgences altogether.
Non-GMO, Gluten Free, Soy Free, No Refined Sugars becoming standard. As consumers become increasingly more conscious of what they put in their bodies we will see products labeled as Non-GMO, gluten Free, No Soy, No food coloring or refined sugars becoming the standard. Long gone are the days where consumers blindly trust products labeled "good for you" without reading the ingredients and discovering the harmful additives hidden behind the reduced sugar content. Consumers now require brands to step up and be authentic and honest in their packaging and or consumers will be quick to vote with their dollar and dismiss a bad actor who pretends to care.