How Yoga is Influencing One of the Hottest Culinary Trends

Millennials, Baby Boomers, and others are incorporating Ayurveda foods and beverages into their diets

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Jul 11, 2017, 12:17 ET

ROCKVILLE, Md., July 11, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Meditate on this: Ancient wisdom for 21^st century living is influencing not just exercise trends, but also food and beverage choices for some Americans, according to Cutting Edge Wellness: Culinary Trend Tracking Series.

Thanks to the huge popularity and mainstream status of yoga, the ancient Indian healing practice of Ayurveda has become better known to American wellness consumers. Ayurveda is a complex holistic approach to restoring balance in a person that includes physical, mental, emotional and spiritual elements. People lose balance due to disease, aging, improper diet, stress and trauma. To restore it, Ayurvedic practitioners use food, beverage, herbal supplements, meditation and exercise as well as mindful eating habits.

Which Consumers are Embracing Ayurvedic Principles and Holistic Health

This notion of holistic well-being is appealing to wellness consumers who aspire to healthier living that includes restful sleep, balanced exercise and diet, traditional herbal supplements and meditation. For example, Packaged Facts found that for Boomers, Millennials and anyone else seeking holistic health approaches, Ayurvedic principles are intriguing and attractive, providing a historical context and reasons to believe.

"Ayurvedic food and beverages fit for consumers well-versed in physical fitness, supplement-supported wellness, and alternative medicine. For yogis and those meditating along with Dr. Deepak Chopra or Oprah, Ayurvedic ingredients may already be part of a personal regime," says David Sprinkle research director, Packaged Facts. "Paleos, Keto dieters and natural food lovers also find inspiration in some Ayurvedic items, such as ghee and supportive herbs.

However, a specific Ayurvedic diet is not likely to be an exclusive practice beyond those working with a healer for a specific treatment. Instead, as is typical in our try-it-on-for-size wellness society, a few star ingredients and food items have risen out of the tradition and taken on lives of their own. Take turmeric, for example, the recently anointed superspice gilding hot beverages in coffee shops across the country. Or—as Sprinkle mentioned—ghee, a rising good fat in the natural and specialty grocery channels. Behind these health-food darlings are more traditional Ayurvedic herbal and medicinal teas, as well as a host of novel ready-to-drink functional beverages, touting potent botanical benefits that appeal to consumers seeking tonics with a touch of tradition.

What's Next For Ayurveda Foods and Beverages

Brands committed to Ayurveda say so and find their audience in yoga adherents and others tapped into this wellness vein. For new product or brand development, being authentically part of a real Ayurvedic practice will be key if that positioning is desired. Alternatively, many wellness brands that are picking and choosing healing ingredients—pinch of ashwagandha here and a sprinkle of turmeric there—can still offer education, resources and supply chain reassurances on marketing materials and websites to ground a product's legitimate benefits.

On the culinary side, regional Indian cuisine flavors and forms connect diners to a deeper cultural context and offer great taste (especially in vegetarian fare), but as these ingredients become more familiar, they don't always have to be dressed up in that fashion. Instead, they can be part of a broader approach to wellness that intelligently draws from multiple traditions

Ultimately, Packaged Facts anticipates the biggest opportunities for such products lie in the functional health space, where tonics and elixirs offer refreshment with natural-feeling energy boosts and other benefits that are more subtle and long-term, like adaptogenic support.

About The Report

In Cutting Edge Wellness: Culinary Trend Tracking Series, Packaged Facts analyzes food trends related to:

Reaction to overly processed food
Interest in getting closer to the land and food production methods, animal welfare
Diet and lifestyle taking global and environmental politics into consideration

We discuss these and other related trends as they apply to the culinary, foodservice, and food retail markets across four stages of influence:

Stage 1: Adaptogenic Plants
Stage 2: Ayurvedic Food & Beverage
Stage 3: Paleo Diet (or Trend?)
Stage 4: Vegan Diet (or Lifestyle? Trend?)

View more information about Cutting Edge Wellness: Culinary Trend Tracking Series, including purchase options, the abstract, table of contents, and related reports at Packaged Facts' website: https://www.packagedfacts.com/Cutting-Edge-Wellness-Culinary-Trend-Tracking-Series-10960508/.

Packaged Facts' Culinary Trend Tracking Series (CuTTS) is the essential source for tracking culinary trends and opportunities in the restaurant, foodservice, retail prepared foods, and packaged food and beverage sectors. This report series supports the menu and food manufacturing innovation of executives, strategists, chefs, and food research professionals in R&D/product development, market and consumer insights, brand management, and trade and consumer marketing.

The Culinary Trend Tracking Series helps customers:

Identify future opportunities in menu offerings and packaged foods & beverages
Leverage the long-term drivers that are truly propelling food industry trends
Track trends in fine dining restaurant, foodservice, retail prepared foods, and packaged foods
Match emerging trends to your organization's ongoing menu and product development

More Packaged Facts reports on foods and beverages are available for purchase at: https://www.packagedfacts.com/food-beverage-market-c84/.

About Packaged Facts

Packaged Facts, a division of MarketResearch.com, publishes market intelligence on a wide range of consumer market topics, including consumer demographics and shopper insights, consumer financial products and services, consumer goods and retailing, consumer packaged goods, and pet products and services. Packaged Facts also offers a full range of custom research services.

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SOURCE Packaged Facts