Miranda

Protein Bean Brownies

January 15, 2022 Miranda

Protein Bean Brownies

Servings: 8
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 40 mins
Difficulty: Easy
Rating: ★★★★★
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I discovered this yummy recipe when I was looking for ideas to use up a pack of beans that was about to expire. The beans are an excellent source of fibre and together with the cocoa powder make a perfect meal for our gut microbes. Other than being beneficial for our microbiome, this recipe is also mineral and protein packed - both from the beans and eggs as well as the protein powder. Oh, and those gooey melted chocolate chunks are just heavenly delicious!

Tips: These brownies can actually freeze pretty well! Just cut them into individual servings and pop into a freezer bag. Using canned beans which are softer will make the batter more smooth & consistent.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups black beans (canned or pre-cooked)
3 eggs
3 tbsp coconut oil, melted
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp chocolate pea protein powder
2 tbsp vanilla protein powder (I used Dr. Amy Myers beef protein)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup dark chocolate chunks (dairy-free)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 C). Blend black beans in food processor into a rough paste. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and add eggs and melted coconut oil. Mix well.
Mixing well after each ingredient add cocoa, protein powders, baking powder and salt one by one into the mixing bowl. Then stir in chocolate chunks (you can just crush 1/3 of a dark chocolate bar).
Using extra coconut oil, grease a 25x10cm loaf tin, then line with baking paper. Pour in batter and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until the edges are visibly cooked and the center doesn’t jiggle much when you shake the tin (if using the a toothpick test, it may still come out a little wet and that’s ok – we want these brownies moist!).
Transfer to a cooling rack and allow to cool before cutting into individual brownies.

Nutrition

Per Serving: 175 calories; 10g fat; 8.5g carbohydrates; 13g protein; 5g Fibre; 24% DV for copper; 17% DV for iron; 18% DV for manganese; 16% DV for phosphorus.

Motivation

My story

January 13, 2022 Miranda

Part 1

Let’s start the new year with some introductions (or re-introductions for those of you who know me 😁). Back in 2020 I graduated with a Master’s degree in Human Nutrition from the University of Birdgeport and boy was it an achievement!

After almost 3 years of studying at one of the most established Master’s in Nutrition programs in the USA since 1977, I remember sitting for our 10-part final exam as if it was yesterday. Oh the nerves! We had learned so much, I was afraid my brain would melt 😅

From biochemistry and physiology to evidence-based nutrition, nutritional therapeutics and functional & botanical medicine, we covered it all! There was even a virtual clinic at the end, where we put everything we had learned into practice. This was probably my favourite part, along with advanced biochemical assessments and the functional role of nutrients in human health.

But all of these simply confirmed what I already knew from personal experience – that food is medicine and we have the power to manage our own health through the choices we make. Are you a fellow nutritionist or someone who’s just passionate about nutrition? What are your favourite learnings so far?

Part 2

Friends, the road to becoming a #nutritionist is a long one. In part 1 above I spoke about my pretty intense 2.5-year Master’s degree in Human Nutrition, but passing that final exam was not the end.

Following my graduation I pursued a 12-month, 1000+ hours supervised #clinical experience AAANNDD another 200-question board exam to become a Certified Nutrition Specialist (CNS) through the American Nutrition Association.

This is one of the most advanced certifications for #personalized nutrition practitioners. This means that as a CNS I practice #science-based nutrition therapy tailored to each individual’s needs for optimal health. Going through this extensive board #certification has put on a clear, practical perspective on everything I learned during my Master’s degree and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world!

*And of course I was very lucky to have completed my clinical supervision hours in a very special place… but more on that later! (i.e. in Part 3)

Body Signs

The Body Signs Series – #1 Cracked Tongue

January 13, 2022January 15, 2022 Miranda

Have you ever thought how impressive and intelligent our bodies are? Constantly ticking away, sensing and adapting to a whole host of internal and external inputs, and in the processes sending us a myriad of signs & clues about our state of health. Fascinating isn’t it?

In this new series of posts called ‘Body Signs’ we’ll learn how to decode our bodies’ messages from a nutrition perspective (and you’ll be surprised with some of the things we’ll uncover!) But why is learning to read our bodies important? Well, being aware of what is happening in our bodies can help steer our health in the right direction, ease our anxiety, motivate us to take better care of ourselves and build a better relationship with our bodies.

So let’s start with the tongue. It is often one of the first areas of the body to show signs of nutrient deficiencies. Although this sign may not tell us exactly what’s out of balance, it can help guide further assessments.

Both iron and B vits are necessary for energy production, hormone and neurotransmitter function, immune health and DNA repair. All of which are critical processes for our overall health.

Blood tests are usually used to determine iron deficiency, whereas B vitamin levels can be assessed either through blood (standard) or urine (functional) testing. The advantage of a urine test is that it tells us whether your body has enough nutrients to function optimally (vs. a set reference range on a blood test).

Of course, such assessments should never be viewed in isolation – there are a lot of tools we can use in combination to build a clear picture of our nutrition status (including these physical signs and biochemical assessments).

Your body is talking, are you listening?

Nutrients

Vitamin A

January 10, 2022January 7, 2022 Miranda

Did you know that there are 13 vitamins essential for life? They are essential because each one of them serves a whole host of important functions in the body.

Take for example Vitamin A. It is needed for:

Eyesight
Immune function
Bone growth
Skin integrity
Reproductive health
Optimal gene expression
Red blood cell production

This fat-soluble vitamin is found in animal foods as preformed vitamin A and in plant foods as its precursor – carotenoids.

Top sources include:

Beef liver
Eggs
Butter
Sweet potatoes
Pumpkin
Carrots
Dark coloured veggies (spinach, kale, collards, etc.)

Vitamin A status can be tested through a simple serum (blood) test and deficiency can produce notable symptoms such as vision problems, poor immune function, skin and hair conditions, thyroid dysfunction + more (we’ll explore some of those in our Body Signs series).

Zinc and iron deficiencies are often associated Vitamin A deficiency (zinc is needed for vit. A metabolism, whereas vit. A is needed for iron metabolism).

For optimal absorption consume vitamin A and carotenoid-rich foods with healthy fats.

References:

Lord R, Bralley J. Laboratory Evaluations For Integrative And Functional Medicine. Duluth, Ga: Genova Diagnostics; 2012.
Higdon J. Vitamin A. Linus Pauling Institute. https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/vitamins/vitamin-A. Published 2022. Accessed January 7, 2022.

Recipes

Salmon fishcakes

December 15, 2021December 15, 2021 Miranda

Salmon fishcakes

Servings: 12
Prep Time: 15 mins
Cook Time: 45 mins
Difficulty: Medium
Rating: ★★★★
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These salmon patties are great for entertaining family and friends. They are gluten-free and dairy-free, and work wonderfully well as a healthy main dish with a side of steamed or roasted veggies. I love that they can be batch-cooked and frozen, making meal prep deliciously easy!

Tips: You can save time by using canned or pre-cooked salmon, pre-boiled potatoes and pre-diced frozen onions, carrots, garlic and parsley. Swap white potatoes with sweet potatoes for a lower glycemic index.

Ingredients

500g white potatoes
2 fresh salmon fillets (450g)
5-6 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, finely diced
1 small carrot, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 cup frozen peas, defrosted
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sunflower or almond flour
1/3 cup fresh parsley, finely chopped
2 tbsp. fresh dill, finely chopped
Salt & pepper to taste

Directions

Fill a large saucepan half-way with water, add a pinch of salt and bring to boil. Peel the potatoes and cut them into large chunks. Once the water is boiling, add the potatoes, bring to boil, and then cook on medium heat for 10 mins (until cooked through). Drain the potatoes and set aside to cool off.
As the potatoes boil, preheat oven to 220°C. Place salmon on unbleached baking paper and drizzle 1 tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper and bake for 10-13 mins (until cooked through).
Meanwhile, dice and chop vegetables. Once the salmon is cooked, place it in the fridge for 5-10 mins to cool off.
In a large pan, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil, onion, garlic and peas; cook on medium heat for 6-8 mins. Remove from the heat and let cool.
Mash the cooled potatoes with a masher, add olive oil if necessary.
In a large bowl flake the salmon (without the skin) and add the cooked onion, garlic and peas, as well as the potato mash, fresh herbs, flour and eggs. Mix well with a wooden spoon or with your hand.
Make small patties from the mixture and place on a plate. In the same large pan used earlier, heat the rest of the olive oil on medium heat. Add the salmon patties and cook for 3-4 minutes on each side.
When removing the patties from the pan, place them on a plate with a few paper towels to absorb the excess oil.
Serve them warm or cold – your choice!

Nutrition

Per Serving: 218 calories; 13g fat; 10g carbohydrates; 13g protein; 1g Omega-3s; 68% DV for vitamin D; 49% DV for vitamin B12; 36% DV for vitamin A; 37% DV for selenium.

Nutrition

Calorie Counting – Is It Really That Important?

September 29, 2018 Miranda

The short answer would be ‘it depends’.

If you have had even the tiniest of experiences in weight loss or ‘toning’ your body (i.e. building muscle) you would have been told to stick to your daily calorie target. You would also have been told about the concept of ‘calories in’ vs. ‘calories out’. In order to lose weight the calories consumed should be less than the calories used up.

Although this concept is very true and correct, simply looking at calories is not automatically going to give you good health (even if you’re achieving your fitness/weight loss targets!).

Calories post

Why is that? Because each calorie has its own nutritional value. That means that, depending on its source, a calorie will have a different composition of nutrients (protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and water). And so calories from fat will function differently in the body compared to calories from sugar.

Sugar, the simplest form of carbohydrates, requires very little digestion and goes straight into the bloodstream. Now, the body can only process the sugar at a certain rate and it also has a limit as to how much sugar should be circulating in the blood. Too much sugar in the blood can cause a range of serious metabolic derangements in the body and so our bodies try really hard to remove excess sugar from the bloodstream (in fact, our bodies work best when we have less than 1 teaspoon of sugar circulating in the bloodstream). And so the body will first use as much sugar as it can for energy and then the rest will be stored as fat.

Blood sugar

On the other hand, calories from fats are released more slowly because fats take longer to digest and absorb (some say up to 8 hours!). This allows the body to use up the energy released from the fats in small batches, avoiding the flood of energy which then has to be stored as fat.

To make things more complicated, it is not just about the macronutrients (those required in large quantities) – proteins, fats and carbohydrates. We can think of these macronutrients as the fuel and building blocks of the body. However, it is the micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) which act as the gears that enable the body to use the fuel and function properly. Thus, a calorie which contains mostly macronutrients but little or no micronutrients is also of little use to the body.

And so we go back to the beginning – not all calories are made equal. If you’re just interested in weight loss, eating anything within your calorie target could still help you lose weight. However, in addition to losing weight you may also deplete the body of the vital minerals and vitamins, the gears of the body, which affect how your body functions and ultimately your health!

Oh, by the way, did you also know that calories from different food sources are burnt differently? We’ll talk about this and the various factors which affect how we burn calories in part 2 of this post. Stay tuned!

Nutrition

What is Functional Nutrition and Why Should You Care?

June 16, 2018June 16, 2018 Miranda

Nutrition – the word itself conjures images of strict diets and weight scales, doesn’t it? And yet nutrition is about a lot more than just that.

Over the years nutrition has started taking a more prominent spot in the worlds of health and medicine. Not just in the treatment of digestive diseases, but for a wide variety of ailments and health situations.

Functional Nutrition post

At the forefront of change is a new discipline called ‘Functional medicine’ – I spoke about it in an earlier post. In a nutshell, functional medicine relies heavily on nutrition and lifestyle interventions before turning to pharmaceuticals.

Why are these changes happening now? Because people from both sides of the field (i.e. patients and healthcare providers) are starting to realize that the current system doesn’t work.

To put it in the words of the great biochemist and author Dr. T. Colin Campbell, most countries today have a “disease-care system” rather than a healthcare one.

Current Western medical models are too focused on the individual parts of the human body (reductionism). Although this approach can tell us a lot about how specific organs work on their own, it doesn’t reveal much about how they all function together in the complex human body. For example, knowing how the neurons in the brain work doesn’t really help us understand why we react emotionally to our favorite song.

We need to see the full picture to truly understand what is going on. And we can do this through functional medicine and functional nutrition.

How? Functional nutrition goes much deeper than food labels and diet plans – its main focus is finding the root cause of your symptoms and resolving them. A nutritionist trained in functional medicine will use advanced laboratory testing and other assessment techniques to create powerful and highly personalized therapeutic interventions.

The first step in the functional approach is to take a detailed look at the patient’s history – not just the physical symptoms but also other predisposing factors, such as past stressful life events. Stress is a huge factor in many (if not all!) diseases.

The next step would be lab testing to confirm (or exclude) possible underlying causes of the symptoms. As the saying goes – “test, don’t guess”.

Based on all of the information collected, a functional nutritionist will then start investigating what is the root cause. Where are all of your symptoms and ailments intersecting? Is there a common factor, pathway or axis? Are there any imbalances in body functions and systems?

You may be surprised how intricately all systems of our body are connected. For example, food intolerances (e.g. lactose and gluten) can cause headaches and migraines with mild or minimal symptoms in the digestive tract (which may be missed easily). A traditional doctor may just prescribe you a medicine for the migraines, without really looking into the root cause.

In other cases, a person may be experiencing a range of symptoms, however standard medical tests would come back “in the clear” and the person would be told that there is nothing wrong with them. This is usually because most lab reference ranges are for end-stage disease and not for optimal health – just because something isn’t marked red on the test result doesn’t mean that all is ok!

Another example is the link between inflammation and many “incurable” chronic diseases:

what-is-chronic-inflammation-jan-overbay

As you can see, a functional nutritionist is committed to finding the root cause of your symptoms and resolving them, no matter how long it takes. They are also committed to working together with you, listening to your story and how your body feels. And that is why functional nutrition and functional medicine is the answer to some of the problems in health and healthcare today.

Nutrition, psychology

Is Your Food Making You Depressed?

May 13, 2018May 19, 2018 Miranda

No, I don’t mean that “boring, bland, diet food” (although healthy food is not boring, but more on that later). What I’m talking about is your standard food intake. You know, the “wholegrain” sandwich and pasta, the takeaway pizza, the “healthy” rice bowl or potato mash – those kind of things.

How can they make you depressed – they taste like happiness right?! Well, despite the short-term boost in mood, a high-carbohydrate, high-sugar diet can lead to something called insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance (IR)

What is it? IR happens when the cells in your body are not responding to the hormone insulin. Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, takes excess glucose from our blood stream into many cells throughout the body.

When your cells refuse to open their ‘doors’ to insulin, the excess glucose remains in the blood wreaking all sort of trouble. Here’s just a few of the issues caused by IR:

The cells run out of fuel. Yes, our cells need glucose to produce energy and function properly.
The cells become malnourished. When our cells open their ‘doors’ to glucose, they also let in vital nutrients such as amino acids and vitamins. These nutrients are also needed for proper cellular function.
Burnout of pancreatic cells. The beta-cells of the pancreas are responsible for producing insulin. These cells are stimulated by excess glucose in the blood. Constantly high blood glucose levels will force these cells to work overtime, pumping out as much insulin as they can until they start to burn out and die. The result: reduced capacity of the body to produce insulin. This is the beginning of diabetes.

IR and brain chemistry

OK, we now know that both insulin and glucose are needed to take nutrients into our cells. But how does that relate to our mood, brain chemistry and depression specifically?

You may have heard that our moods are regulated by our brain chemistry. What that means is that certain chemical molecules can affect how our brain cells function. Such molecules are called neurotransmitters – they transmit ‘information’ from a nerve cell to another nerve cell or a muscle cell or any other cell in our body.

Neurotransmitters are made inside the brain from amino acids (the building blocks of protein) and other compounds. To get inside the brain, the amino acids have to pass a protective barrier called the blood-brain barrier (BBB). This process requires sufficient amounts of insulin and the cells to be sensitive to insulin’s actions.

The important neurotransmitters for regulating our moods are serotonin, dopamine, adrenalin, acetylcholine and GABA. Here’s how two of them are made:

Serotonin Synthesis — Serotonin synthesis

Audio from Dr. Oscar Coetzee, Masters in Human Nutrition lecturer and clinical nutritionist.

So when the cells in our body, including the brain, are not responding properly to insulin fewer amino acids can cross the BBB leading to a drop in the amount of neurotransmitters in the brain. This alters our brain chemistry and can lead to many emotional and psychological symptoms including the below:

So here you are – what you eat can make you depressed by altering your brain chemistry! Of course there are more factors including stress, addictive and toxic foods as well as vitamin and mineral deficiencies. These will be covered in future posts, so keep an eye out if you’re interested!

Nutrition

What is Alternative Medicine and Where does Nutrition Fit?

March 13, 2018March 13, 2018 Miranda

Alternative medicine has been on the rise for several decades now and it seems that it will keep growing in the foreseeable future. The most recent addition to the alternative medicine family is Functional medicine. Why is it different? Because it offers something traditional medicine doesn’t – that is working on the body as a whole to eliminate the root cause, rather an as isolated systems of organs and suppressing symptoms.

So what’s the big fuss? Let’s take a look at the current healthcare landscape.

Conventional Medicine

Western medicine or allopathic medicine is the dominant approach to health are not only in the West but in any developed country (thanks to globalization). These paradigm treat the symptoms of disease rather than the root cause. The National Cancer Institute’s describes allopathic and Western medicine as using “drugs, radiation or surgery to treat symptoms and disease. These can also be called conventional medicine or mainstream medicine.

Alternative Medicine

There are many paradigms which fall under “alternative medicine”. According to the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM), this approach goes beyond just treating symptoms and aims to achieve optimal health.Osteopathic healthcare consists of conventional drugs, surgery and special osteopathic manipulative techniques.These techniques are hands-on – an osteopathic doctor would use their hands to stretch or apply gentle pressure on muscles and joints.

Holistic medicine encompasses body, mind and soul into its practice. It treats the person as one whole, rather than the sum of its parts/organs/systems, and thus the name holistic.Like osteopathic medicine, holistic medicine looks for the root cause of problems, rather than just treating symptoms. It includes physical, social, psychological and spiritual elements of health and disease.

Naturopathic medicine has self-healing at the core of its paradigm.It uses therapeutic methods (including nutritional, manipulative, homeopathic and botanical therapies) and substances to assist the body in healing itself.It also focuses on identifying and eliminating the root causes of disease and ill health.

And finally, integrative medicine is the marriage of mainstream and alternative medicine. I believe integrative medicine incorporates all of the above. Some of the top interventions used in integrative medicine are nutrition, yoga, supplementation, massage, meditation and acupuncture.

Functional Medicine

Functional medicine is a systems-based method, linking physiology and function.It takes into account the patient’s lifestyle, genes and environment when looking for the root cause and developing a treatment plan. It is often confused with integrative medicine, because of their many similarities, including a patient-centered approach.

I really like the definition below from this article on Deepak Chopra’s website:

“The Textbook of Functional Medicine defines FM as the ‘prevention, early assessment, and improved management of complex, chronic disease by intervening at multiple levels to correct core clinical imbalances and thereby restore each patient’s functionality and health to the greatest extent possible’.”

Functional Medicine’s 6 Core Principles:

Recognizing the individuality and genetic uniqueness of each human being
Supporting a holistic, patient-cantered — rather than disease-cantered — approach to treatment
Searching for a dynamic balance between body, mind, and spirit
Acknowledging the interconnectedness of all internal body functions
Seeing health as a positive vitality — not just the absence of disease
Striving to enhance the health span, not just the life span, of each patient

There’s a good analogy of functional medicine as a tree: the leaves are the symptoms, the trunk is the clinical imbalances, and the roots are the environmental and genetic dispositions.

Functional medicine was found on the premise that dysfunctions on multiple levels (psychological, physiological, etc.) precede disease. Part of its approach is to define disease in terms of how the individual’s genome interacts with the environment and lifestyle and how that is expressed in physiological function.

A typical course of action would be to correct physiological imbalances and change the environmental factors (including nutrition) which undermine optimal function.

Back to Alternative Medicine

All of the outlined medicine paradigms have one goal in common – to restore and maintain optimal health. Alternative and especially functional medicine aims to go beyond the absence of disease and towards 100% function of the body.

Where does nutrition fit into this? Nutrition fits in each and every model. It is a core component of osteopathic, naturopathic, holistic and functional medicine. It can also help many hospital in-patients and out-patients in their recovery from invasive treatments or to counter-balance the effects of medications. Nutrients affect us not just on a system level but also on a cellular level. We need good nutrition in order function optimally and support our bodies to maintain homeostasis (balance).

I believe all of these approaches can work together under a funnel approach. At the top of the funnel we have the less invasive/aggressive approaches: osteopathic medicine, holistic medicine, naturopathic medicine and functional medicine. In this way most of the chronic diseases can be prevented and reversed, the burden on public health systems and hospitals can be lowered and patients can actively participate (and choose) their treatment plans.

At the bottom of the funnel would be the remaining approaches: western medicine, allopathic medicine and regenerative medicine. Let’s not forget that A&E doctors save lives every day! That is why we cannot completely eliminate traditional medicine – we still need it for emergency and severe cases. However, I would rather see them as a last resort.

The “funnel” approach as I would like to call it will limit the number of people requiring medications and surgeries, free up more time for the allopathic doctor so that he/she can focus more on their patient’s care and thus improve their service. And this is why non-mainstream medicine will continue to grow.

lifestyle

2018 Wellness Trends

January 31, 2018 Miranda

2018 Wellness trends

Here we are at the end of January and there have been plenty of new trends in the health and wellbeing field. Industry experts predict that 2018 will see moringa (a “super” anti-inflammatory green) replace turmeric, collagen overtake protein powders and “nootropic” (brain boosters/cognitive enhancers) supplements climb the top of the popularity list.

Other trends include the focus on gut health, supporting your mitochondria (cell power houses) produce more energy and sleep optimisation. But I’m not going to discuss these here because these trends may work for some people but they may not for others. This happens because of our biochemical individuality – we are all unique in terms of genetics, current health status and environmental & lifestyle factors.

With that in mind, I have picked a couple of trends I found interesting and could perhaps be applied to most of us. Let’s take a look:

2018 Trends - Tech

I’m really happy to see that disconnecting from social media and technology is deemed to be one of the top wellness trends for 2018. According to top wellness websites Mindbodygreen and Well+Good this year more and more of us will turn away from social media platforms and tech gadgets in a bid to reduce stress and break away from harmful addictions. As technology and apps improve their designs and features to keep us hooked, we aim to retaliate by returning to the real world and stimulating our brains with real interactions and fostering new communities.

As more and more evidence suggests smart tech is to blame for stress, anxiety, depression (and even rising teenage suicide rates), we have become determined to break free from tech chains and companies & entrepreneurs are taking notice. Catering to this trend are a growing number of co-working spaces, phone-free social clubs, wi-fi free cafes & hotels and “analogue” travel destinations (Check out Villa Stephanie in Baden-Baden, Germany —which blocks all WiFi signals from your room by embedding copper plates in the walls — the Mandarin Hotel Las Vegas’ ‘digital wellness escape” where phones are left at the front desk and glamping startup Hipcamp for totally off-the-grid places).

But we are not completely turning our backs to technology – rather we’re choosing when and how we use it (#we’vegotthepower – literally). Sleep-tech innovation now enables us to rest our weary bodies on smart mattresses which can track your sleep cycles, adjust room temperature and wake you up only when you are in a stage of light sleep. And if you don’t want to part with your existing mattress you have a choice of sleep trackers, apps and gadgets like Apple watch. Another helpful tech category that has recently emerged is femtech – female health apps (from cycle mapping to fertility and conception apps, there’s something for every woman).

2018 Trends - Self-care

Part of the motivation for these changes in technology use and demand are due to our increasing awareness for mental and spiritual wellbeing. The rise of “self-care” marks a new direction for the yoga/meditation/mindfulness trend. More and more people are looking to engage in a slower pace of life. We are just beginning to accept that it is ok to not have a thousand goals on your list / not exercise everyday / not sacrifice sleep / not put yourself last. Scheduling daily or weekly me-time is gaining popularity because it gives us time to recover, get some peace of mind and be fully charged and ready to help and support those who need us.

Mindfulness industry — From Mindbodygreen.com

Meditation and mindfulness are welcoming a lot of new kids on the block – knitting, journaling, colouring, home bath ritual products, taking the time to sit and enjoy our food or even just having lazy mornings in bed! Oh and there’s this new thing called breathwork which is not new really, but instead derives from the way yogis use breath to further their practice. It is becoming popular because, unlike meditation, it does not require you to be in a calm mental state. In fact, you can use specific patterns of breathing to calm down or boost your energy and thus improve your mental wellbeing.

Related to the rise in self-care is the increasing demand for affordable, natural, “green” beauty products. Big corporations like Target, Procter & Gamble and Unilever are finally giving a lot more prominence to chemical-free products (perhaps in the hopes to cash in on consumer’s demand?) and improving transparency on label info.

2018 Trends - Green Beauty

It’s not just about cleaner, organic products though – we want our products to be high performing. Not only are we looking for products which match the efficacy of non-natural products but we want them to nourish and protect our skin from the sun and pollution. Enter “skin-barrier-supporting” and “microbiome-enhancing” serums which promise to build our skin’s defence against environmental toxins and improve its function. These products use ingredients such as lipids, ceramides, adaptogens, and even live bacteria to help our skin adapt to our environment.

Ultimately what these trends show us is two things – 1. we, as consumers, have the power to change entire industries and 2. investing time in our wellbeing is an important (and growing) aspect of health.

The most important thing you should keep in mind when making any health related decisions is that you are unique and only you can tell what works for you.