What We Can Learn From Millennials

The Lempert Report
January 18, 2021

To commemorate this year’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day, let’s remember that peace for all and good health should be our goals for 2021.

In order to achieve at least the good health part there was a captivating column on AARP.org that suggests that its time for all of us to pay attention to the foods that Millennials are eating and follow their diets to improve our health & well-being. And is a roadmap for supermarkets to understand which foods they should be highlighting to all their shoppers.

It starts off by saying we all should take a few cues from the way the younger generation eats, cooks and grocery shops, and that we may be inspired to change what's on our plate without compromising your diet or derailing our weight loss plans. One hack is to tap into the internet which is full of creative recipes to figure out new ways to cook and diversify the ingredients you work with.

"(Millennials) want what they call ‘clean’ food. What they really mean is that they want ‘real’ food,” Anne VanBeber, professor of nutrition at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth told AARP. “They are interested in how the preparation of the food, the packaging, and the storing of the food impacts the environment."

To eat clean, according to the Millennial way, means choosing whole foods such as fruits and vegetables instead of processed snacks and ready-made meals with a list of ingredients that are impossible to pronounce,

This generation tends to choose beverages such as sparkling water, green tea and kombucha over soda. Instead of buying groceries at big box or multipurpose stores such as Walmart or Costco they look for more specialized grocers such as Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, which sell options that are more ethically sourced and contain less processed ingredients, according to a study of 12.5 million millennial social media posts by CBD Marketing.

AARP asked nutrition experts about nine foods from a definitive list of 60 millennial foods by Buzzfeed.

1. Avocado toast, perhaps the most obvious “millennial” food because it appears on restaurant menus and is a staple of weekend brunch, can make for a nutritious breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack.

2. Cauliflower is a vegetable common to many household crispers that has taken on new popularity as a carb replacement in the form of cauliflower crust and rice.

3. Kale  provides nutrients, like Vitamin K, that are important for healthy bones, heart, brain and gut health.

4. Kombucha is a fermented unpasteurized tea that offers healthy probiotics which can battle inflammation, improve gut health and digestion.

5. Matcha is made from steamed green tea leaves that are ground into a powder that can make drinks, baked goods or creamy desserts.

6. Oat milk is made from whole grain oats blended with water and has more fiber than any milk product and is dairy free.

7. Overnight oats is a one-dish, no-cook breakfast that provides lots of soluble fiber, which helps lower cholesterol, control blood sugar and provide vitamins like calcium and magnesium.

8. Poke bowls contain raw marinated fish (typically tuna) with an assortment of fresh vegetables and rice it is a low-calorie, low-fat meal that provides lots of fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and other phytochemicals noted for their relationship with lower risk of cancer.

Last but not least -

9. Quinoa  a gluten-free, high in protein whole grain superfood that supplies a plethora of nutrients such as magnesium, B-vitamins and fiber.

It’s time we look on Millennials plates.