Health Food Trends You'll Want To Try In 2021

Planning to get healthy in 2021? You're not alone. According to data from Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), 31 percent of consumers plan on committing to their health in the new year, while 50 percent of individuals said their desire for a healthier lifestyle will significantly impact their food and drink purchases in 2021 (via Food Navigator). "The pandemic has accelerated consumer interest in a more holistic approach to health," the company said in a release. 

Forbes agreed with such predictions, suggesting that one of the biggest trends we're going to see in 2021 is a move towards healthy, sustainable, and environmentally-friendly eating. In 2021, we're not going to be so focused on restrictive diets and instead transition to a more mindful way of eating, predicted nutritionist Brigitte Zeitlin in an interview with Well+Good. "Mindfulness has been bubbling up for the past year or two, but I think COVID-19 has escalated the conversation," she explained.

If you're ready to put the dumpster fire that was 2020 behind you and focus on having a happy, health 2021, you're going to want to take a look at some of the biggest health trends to expect.

Not quite vegan, not quite carnivore, diets that combine the two principles — a movement that's been dubbed "flexitarianism" — will become the preferred way of eating for more and more people in 2021. Food and Wine has described flexitarians as "people who eat meat, but also eat vegetarian and vegan alternatives, too." Spurred not just by health reasons but also an increasing interest in animal rights and a desire to help to protect the environment, flexitarianism is a movement that's gaining more and more steam, especially with millennials. In fact, 60 percent of this generation expressed interest in adopting a flexitarian diet in 2018 (via Statista).

Thanks to movements like "Meatless Mondays," more and more people of all generations are open to merging vegan and vegetarian principles into their existing diets, according to a study from Nielsen. For example, the group found that a remarkable 98 percent of men and women who bought plant-based meats also reported buying regular meat. Food processing company ADM predicts that this trend will continue into 2021, revealing that 56 percent of consumers globally are making an effort to eat more plant-based foods and beverages, especially alternative plant-based proteins (via FoodNavigator).

The movement towards a more planet-friendly way of eating has been gaining traction for years thanks to trends like eating locally grown, or consuming in-season foods to cut down on the energy used to get food to your plate. The idea is so pronounced, there's even a name for it: climatarian. The Cambridge Dictionary has described the word to mean "a person who chooses what to eat according to what is least harmful to the environment."

According to the New Hope Network, "Over two-thirds (65%) of consumers want to have a positive impact on the environment through their everyday actions." Based on this, they say, our desire to buy sustainably produced foods will only continue to grow in 2021.

Already, companies such as Panera and Just Salad have begun adding carbon footprint information for the foods they sell to their menus. If you are somebody that wants to protect the planet, making more sustainable food choices is one of the most impactful — and beneficial — things you can do, explained Laura Timlin, director of The Carbon Trust, to Discover. That's why this movement continues to grow, she said.

Move over cauliflower. The vegetable of the year in 2021 will be the humble chickpea. No longer just the core ingredient in hummus and falafel, chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans) were called one of the food trends to watch in 2021 by Whole Foods, with the trendy grocery purveyor predicting they will soon be "popping up in products like chickpea tofu, chickpea flour and even chickpea cereal."

Chickpeas have already overtaken the pasta market, with Banza becoming the fastest-growing pasta brand in the United States (via FoodNavigator). The company's success has been so great, it raised $20 million in additional funding to help fuel further growth and expansion. 

Why the newfound love for this ancient legume? For starters, chickpeas are nutritional powerhouses, packed with protein, fiber, folate, and phosphorus. They're also easy to prepare, über affordable, and have a hearty, satisfying flavor that works in everything from tacos to tapas. In addition to pasta, chickpea flour can be used in lower-carb breads and crusts. Even the water chickpeas are soaked in to soften has a use. Called aquafaba, his starchy liquid is a core ingredient in many dairy-free ice creams and other healthy desserts.

Foods that originated in the Middle East are trending widely for 2021. One of the most buzzworthy is a confection known as halva. Traditional halva comes in two forms: the gelatinous flour-based candy and the crumbly nut butter-based version made from sesame seed paste (tahini). It's the latter of these two delights that has health food fanatics so excited.

Based on the ongoing popularity of tahini-flavored everything — a trend that exploded in 2018 to become a billion dollar industry — it makes sense that sesame seeds remain trendy. At 2020's Specialty Food Association Trendspotter Panel, industry experts selected halva as one of the biggest emerging health food trends of 2021, with well-known foodie Ruth Reichl even calling it "good-for-you candy" due to its high iron content. 

While traditional halva looks more like a block of fudge you would slice and eat, newer iterations include a halva butter made from tahini (or sesame seed paste) that can be spread on toast or crackers and eaten similar to peanut butter or Nutella, and shelf-stable halva slices that come in flavors like toasted coconut and triple chocolate and are similar to a low-sugar cookie.

Forget coconut oil and avocado oil. Epect 2021 to be the year the original healthy oil: olive oil. Yes, it's time for olive oil to make a comeback. Olive oil is well known for its numerous health benefits. According to U.S. News & World Report, substances in the oil called polyphenols have been shown to lower blood pressure, reduce inflammation, and increase levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol in the blood.

The discovery of a new compound called elenolide within olive oil may help to further cement its reputation as the healthiest oil around. According to research published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, elenolide has been found to have antihypertensive and anti-inflammatory properties, both of which further demonstrate it's powerful heart protecting powers. 

With the increased focus on olive oil these studies have brought about, food trend forecaster Elizabeth Moskow told Food Business News that it's only natural that we'd see the focus on healthy oils shift back to olive oil in 2021, with more and more chefs, recipe developers, and manufacturers returning to it in place of formerly trendy alternate oils.

Imagine tender flaky beef, pork, goat or oxtail stewed in a hearty mixture of peppers, onions, and other spices for hours on end. That's birria. And in 2021, food trend forecasters predict it will increase in popularity. The low-cal, protein-packed dish is big in the Southwest and was even featured on Netflix's Taco Chronicles. According to Yelp, searches for birria on their site increased 235 percent in 2020.

Birria (pronounced "beer-ya" with a rolling "r") originated in Jalisco, Mexico. Typically served like a stew, birria generally arrives at the table covered in the juice it was cooked in. Some diners eat the meat as is; others pull the meat out of the stew, build a taco, and then dip the taco back into the remaining liquid before eating. 

Besides its delicious taste, it's also social media friendly, which has only helped to make it a phenomenon, said Angelo Orona, who runs the popular Facebook group Tacos of New Mexico. "It's very photogenic," he told Albuquerque's KRQE. "When you see people consuming and eating birria, they're typically dipping it in this really savory sauce and it just looks great."

Vitamin D deficiency has been an ongoing problem in the United States for decades. Still, people in the U.S. continue to get too little vitamin D, primarily as a result of poor diets low in Vitamin D-rich fish and dairy and limited exposure to the sun (via Scientific American).

Of course, spending more time at home in 2020, didn't exactly help improve matters. Equally worrying, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggested a possible link between COVID-19 infection and vitamin D deficiency. In the study of 489 men and women, 80 percent of individuals with inadequate levels of vitamin D in their blood also ended up testing positive for the virus (via Healthline).

Industry forecaster Market Research has predicted increasing demand for Vitamin D and other immunity-boosting supplements (like elderberry, echinacea, astragalus, garlic, and andrographis) in 2021. According to their data, more than 50 percent of consumers have reported taking more supplements in 2020, and plan to continue that trend into the new year.