This Laid-Back Dieting Approach Is About to Be Huge — And More Insights From Whole Foods’ 2017 Trend Predictions 

Purple everything, including veggies, will be big in 2017, according to the folks at Whole Foods. | william87/iStock.com

When Whole Foods Market buyers and experts announce their top trend predictions in the food arena, I have to wonder if it’s a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Like, does a food trend become a food trend because Whole Foods says it’s trendy, or was it already a trend before Whole Foods took notice? Regardless, last week, Whole Foods Market’s global buyers and experts — the folks who spot trend for their 465 stores — announced their list of the top 10 food trends to look out for in 2017, and they’re making us hungry.

They didn’t put the trends in any particular order, so we’ll just go ahead and tell you guys the ones that are most exciting to us: First off, coconut everything will be big in 2017, according to the folks over at Whole Foods — and it goes beyond coconut oil. We’re talkin’ coconut flour tortillas, coconut aminos, coconut beauty products and more. Another trend we’re into from the Whole Foods’ list of predictions is products made from byproducts, like vegan mayo made from liquid that’s leftover after cooking chickpeas. Hooray for sustainability!

Other trends that will be big in 2017, according to Whole Foods, include alternative pastas — think: pastas made from quinoa, lentils and chickpeas — wellness tonics, like drinking vinegars (you can’t see us, but we’re still skeptically tilting our head at this creation), Japanese flavors galore, like matcha and Azuki bean, and purple everything, from vegetables to chips.

And one of the company’s trend predictions that is super interesting is the idea that more people will embrace their own versions of the Flexitarian diet, which is essentially an almost-always-vegetarian diet, with the occasional steak thrown in the mix. So they’re thinking, instead of becoming diehard Paleo devotees, people might adopt a Paleo-during-the-workweek approach, or a gluten-free-when-it’s-not-a-huge-pain diet. Essentially, people will become a little less committed and more relaxed when it comes to their diets. (Here’s to less stress the next time you host a dinner party!)

You can see Whole Foods’ full rundown of predictions here. Now, if only they could predict how much money I will spend (waste?) on kombucha this year, so I could budget accordingly.

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