Living a Healthy Life with Plant-Based Foods

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Your diet is one of the first places to start if you’re looking to manage your health and weight. Focusing on whole foods from plant sources could reduce body weight, blood pressure and risk of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes and it could make your environmental impact more sustainable. But how do we embrace plants in our diets if we’re so accustomed to including meat and dairy as primary nutrition sources? People use many different terms to describe a plant-based diet, including vegetarian, lacto-ovo vegetarian, pescatarian, and flexitarian to name a few. One of the biggest restriction is veganism, which excludes all animal products, including meat, eggs, and dairy. Recommendations from organizations including the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, World Health Organization, American Diabetes Association, and American Cancer Society tout the benefits of plant-based whole foods and caution against high amounts of red and processed meats, saturated fats, highly refined foods, and added sugar.

Following the prominence of plant-based foods, inflation fears are legitimate. However, these other sectors like plant-based foods might transcend that. After all, when the plant-based milk industry Oatly went public on May 20, 2021, its shares emerge by almost 30 percent and closed the day over 18 percent. (1) In the long run, we have witnessed that plant-based food space is emerging, not just a trend but a movement. It’s a health and wellness buzz that’s gripping the mainstream. Add a green tea to your lemon juice while reading this article!

Plant-based food has taken the market by storm. In the last five years, veganism has gone mainstream with around two percent of people actively describing themselves as vegan. 2020 was the year everyone discovered plant-based, with new products appearing across the market, from bakery and pastries to pizza, lattes, and even dirty burgers. The end of the year saw McDonald’s giving veganism perhaps the ultimate green flag with the launch of the McPlant menu. Experts are said to have speculated that the plant-based food market could develop by almost 11.9 percent by 2027 and have valued it at around $74.2 billion.

Our current health situation had a huge impact and put what was already a buoyant market into overdrive. As a nation, the UK started to introduce more vegetables into its diets and eat less meat. Google searches for ‘vegan’ improve by 700 percent in over four years and campaigns, such as the Vegetarian Society’s Meat-Free Monday, also helped cement the idea of not eating meat every day. At the same time, the flexitarian diet grew in popularity, driven by health and environmental influences; today, around 60 percent of people consider themselves flexitarian. Moreover, as they prepare to go public, these other realms are finding a niche by focusing on an untapped plant-based food sector which is frozen, ready-to-cook comfort foods. (2) Due to the rampancy of plant-based foods, sooner or later, the world might be filled with vegetarians! Loving the idea of living a healthy life? The movement is already challenging you, step up to the plate now!

Wondering how to satisfy the consumer appetite for plant-based foods? The keyword here is innovation. Consumers are getting more adventurous and more curious about plant-based; by doing differently you could set yourself apart from the competition. Innovation could come from a variety of places, from new-to-market ingredients or even the cuisines that are influencing consumers. Unsurprisingly, nutrition is a big influencer. Sail along with these organic foods! Uncover the best prospects here, feel the aroma of plant-based cuisines!

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Source 1: https://news.stanford.edu/today/2021/05/06/embracing-plant-based-diet/

Source 2: https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/article/139141/plant-based-boom/