Savvy Food & Exercise 1/5/22: Food Trends in 2022 and Health Benefits of Exercise

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Resolutions? Food? Exercise? Let’s take a look …

How Will Americans Eat in 2022? was written by Kim Severson for the Food Section of TheNewYorkTimes.com, 28 December 2021.

Last year at this time, optimistic trend forecasters predicted that the cork would burst from the bottle by summer. With vaccines in arms, food culture would vibrate in a robust economy. Clearly, the prediction game can be a losing one. But so what if things didn’t turn out like everyone thought they would? Trying to forecast food trends is still fun, and sometimes even accurate. (Kudos to those professional prognosticators who in recent years nailed the mainstream rise of quesabirria, soufflé pancakes, delivery-only restaurants and CBD. And a special citation for those who saw early on that those ripples of veganism would become a plant-based tsunami.)

So how are things looking for 2022? Not great. But don’t despair. “Constraint breeds innovation,” said Anna Fabrega, a former Amazon executive who recently took over as the chief executive at the meal subscription service Freshly. She and other food industry leaders in the United States say 2022 will be another pragmatic, roll-up-your sleeves kind of year, shaped by the needs of people working from home and by the culinarily-astute-but-fickle Gen Z, whose members want food with sustainable ingredients and a strong cultural back story, prepared without exploitation and delivered in a carbon-neutral way — within 30 minutes.

With that in mind, here are some potential developments, big and small, that could define how we eat in the new year, based on a review of dozens of trend reports and interviews with food company executives, global market researchers and others who make it their business to scour the landscape for what’s next.

- Ingredient of the Year: Mushrooms have landed on many prediction lists, in almost every form, from psilocybin mushrooms (part of the renewed interest in psychedelics) to thick coins of king oyster mushrooms as a stand-in for scallops.
- Drink of the Year: Even in the age of no-alcohol cocktails, all those 1980s drinks you can barely remember (for obvious reasons) are coming back. Look for Blue Lagoons, Tequila Sunrises, Long Island iced tea and amaretto sours re-engineered with fresh juices, less sugar and better spirits. “We all need things that are sweet and colorful and joyful and playful, especially now,” said Andrew Freeman, president of AF & Co., the San Francisco consulting firm that for 14 years has published a popular food and hospitality trend report.
- Chicken, Re-hatched: Meat grown in laboratories from animal cells is on its way to winning federal approval as soon as the end of 2022, and chicken will be one of the first products to become available.
- Seaweed to the Rescue: Kelp grows fast, has a stand-up nutritional profile and removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and nitrogen from the ocean. As a result, farmed kelp will move beyond dashi and the menus at some high-end restaurants and into everyday foods like pasta and salsa.
- Candy Nostalgia: Nostalgic childhood favorites from China (White Rabbit candy and haw flakes) and South Korea (the honeycomb-like treat ppopgi, a.k.a. dalgona candy, and Apollo straws) will work their way into American shopping carts and recipes for desserts and drinks.
- Robusta Rising: The third-wave coffee movement was built on arabica, the world’s most popular coffee. But climate change is threatening production and driving prices up, said Kara Nielsen, who tracks food and drink trends for WGSN, a consumer forecasting and consulting firm. Enter robusta, the bitter, heavily caffeinated workhorse that is less expensive and easier to cultivate. It is the predominant bean grown in Vietnam, where coffee is made with a metal filter called a phin and sweetened with condensed milk and sometimes an egg yolk. A new style of Vietnamese coffee shop is popping up in many American cities, promising to take the robusta right along with it.
- Tasty Tableware: The quality of edible spoons, chopsticks, plates, bowls and cups is going up and the price is going down, signaling the start of a full-fledged edible-packaging revolution aimed at reducing single-use containers and plastic waste.
- Sugar and ‘Swice’: Mash-ups like “swicy” and “swalty” will join the linguistic mania that brought us unfortunate nicknames like char coot and Cae sal (charcuterie and Caesar salad, that is). The new phraseology reflects an even wider embrace of flavor fusions that marry savory spices and heat with sweetness.
- Flavor of the Year: Yuzu has its fans, but the even money is on hibiscus, which is adding its crimson hue and tart, earthy flavor to everything from cocktails and sodas to crudos and yogurt.

Read more: How Will Americans Eat in 2022?

New science shows how exercise affects nearly every cell in the body was reported by Jacqueline Stenson for NBCNews.com, 3 January 2022.

Regular exercise offers many benefits beyond burning calories — so there are plenty of reasons to keep moving in the new year. “Research shows that exercise affects pretty much every cell in the body, not just our heart, not just our muscles, but it also affects all the other organs, as well,” Gaesser said. “Exercise is something that is vital for good health.”

Among the benefits listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are sharper thinking, less depression and anxiety, better sleep, help with weight management, stronger bones and muscles, and reduced risks of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancers of the breast, the colon and other organs.

To obtain “substantial health benefits,” federal health guidelines advise adults to do at least 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity physical activity or 75 to 150 minutes a week of vigorous physical activity, or an equivalent combination.

Exercise to live longer: Glenn Gaesser, a professor of exercise physiology at the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University in Phoenix said research suggests that intentional weight loss is associated with a reduction in mortality risk of 10 percent to 15 percent. By comparison, studies suggest that increasing physical activity or improving fitness is associated with a reduction in mortality risk in the range of 15 percent to 60 percent.

Exercise promotes longevity: Another study published last year also found that exercise promotes longevity — even walking significantly fewer than the often recommended 10,000 steps. Middle-age people who walked at least 7,000 steps a day on average were about 50 percent to 70 percent less likely to die of cancer, heart disease or other causes over the next decade than those who walked less, according to results in JAMA Open Network.