Better For You! Age Of Entertainment

The art of living well relies heavily upon the evolution and reinvention of how we choose to live. With increasing health-consciousness and a demand for wellness-oriented products, we don’t have to go searching for healthy options to the degree we used to when travelling, dining out or grocery shopping.

Today, we are thankfully given opportunities to ‘change up’ the way we exist on a day-to-day basis; dual fuel vehicles, sustainable renewable power sources, reducing our carbon foot-print, as well as refining and rethinking what we put into our bodies. We are seeking out healthier, natural products; veganism has become synonymous with healthy eating; we’re finding ways to move our bodies more too. Around the world, the mindful drinking community has been prevalent in Europe, Australia and New Zealand for years and now we North Americans are adding that to our list of sustainable life options.

The Food and Drink industry is certainly listening to our “better for you” mindset. Thank goodness, because I don’t want to spend 10 months taking off the LBS that took me only a weekend to put on during the holidays. Am I alone here?

Here are some food and drink trends that are becoming commonplace to help us all stay on track this new year:

Cuisine And Being Social

We love restaurants and in-home parties - as we all love to socialize (which many of us have missed out on for months). These rituals of sharing food and drink go hand-in-hand with the memorable moments of life. We’ve got birthdays, the Christmas season, New Year’s Eve, the newly acclaimed Dry January and Valentines to name only a few upcoming events.

If you’ve noticed, menus (from fast food restaurants to fine-dining) are now offering far more gluten-free, and vegan options than they ever have. The ability to consume fewer calories when dining out has been made easier for us to stick to our goals of being healthier. Restaurateurs are catering more to satisfy those palettes that are more interested in sustainable farming, free range and ethically raised proteins. As a nation, we’re slowly evolving thanks in part to us healthy-driven consumers who want ‘better for you’ options.

Options In The Glass

Occasions are to be celebrated, and socializing is important to the human spirit. Since the pandemic, what we are choosing to drink is evolving too. The term ‘sober-curious’ is rapidly catching on with more than just the millennials. If I’m dining out at a fancy restaurant, deciding to pair the food with a soda or orange juice just murders the experience. Plus, I feel like a 10-year-old. Enter, the no-and-low alcohol (NoLo) -.5% alcohol option. It classifies as no alcohol because the average human metabolizes .5% while it's being ingested. You’d figuratively blow up, long before you got even tipsy. NoLo drinks are helping people of every demographic to fully participate and celebrate special occasions, either choosing a hybrid tactic of choosing drinks with and without alcohol to stay responsible or they are choosing not to imbibe at all. The trend is becoming main-stream now. This year’s US Open Tennis event offered a no-alcohol beer and well-known movie character, 007 James Bond chooses no-alcohol beer in the upcoming movie, No Time to Die! In one of the scenes, Bond is sitting at a bar, passing up his signature cocktail of choice, telling the barman “I'm working”.

For the first time party-goers who are not interested in the side-effects of alcohol can enjoy a “glass of wine” like everyone else, with the advantage of consuming very little to no alcohol, but still are enjoying all the social mores of the average party goer. Now you can go out for a two or three course meal and enjoy a glass or two of a NoLo drink with hors d'oeuvres or your first course, but fully enjoy a glass of Barolo or Bordeaux with your meal, if you choose to. The call for a tasty no alcohol beverage is finally here. Be prepared to see an increased number of NoLo options in retail stores, restaurants and a bar or two near you. The art of living well has just been made a little easier for us all.

No matter what goes in your glass or appears on your plate, here’s to making better choices to get the most out of life this year.