Hello, there. Yes, you, the human emerging from the chocolate-covered, champagne-sparkled, eggnog-fogged holiday season. Haven’t thought much about 2005 yet, have you?
Don’t worry. Q has done the work for you. We’ve talked with prognosticators, pros and professors to find out what looms in the New Year, especially regarding those qualities of life we hold dear: our relationships, our leisure time and our health.
Speaking of health, expect all sorts of “miraculous” diets to come and go but good nutrition to stay, with the organic buzz continuing. Why, even some of the nation’s ballparks are reportedly giving organic hot dogs a tryout.
Nor will Fido be left out; owners are looking beyond chew-toy quality to the nutritional components of their pets’ chow as well as their daily vitamins.
The carb comeback and other ’05 trends
If you thought the last month was, well, time crunched, just wait until 2005. We’ll be juggling family life and the workplace, squeezing in workouts that are more efficient and, yep, eating on the go–but we’ll be doing it with a little more nutrition savvy.
What else is on the horizon? Read on.
Low-carbohydrate craze collapses. For those of us who love our breads, pastas and potatoes, this trend couldn’t end soon enough. But thankfully, “the American people will go from carbophobic to carb selective,” said Dave Grotto, a registered dietitian and director of nutrition at Block Center for Integrative Cancer Care in Evanston. “We’ll see this continued trend that focuses on glycemic index with very interesting research coming out.”
Grotto also expects the nutritional climate to change. Insurance companies will begin to reimburse consumers for lifestyle-change coaching, nutrition counseling and wellness coaching, he suspects, while fast-food restaurants and workplace cafeterias will be offering healthier choices.
“The people have spoken, and they have a powerful influence on what restaurants start to offer,” Grotto said. “Fast-food restaurants are recognizing it’s a prime time to start making healthier offerings.”
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–Julie Deardorff
Integrative medicine gains momentum. Nearly 6 million American adults turned to complementary and alternative medicine last year to treat conditions such as depression and chronic pain because conventional medical treatment was too expensive, according to the Center for Studying Health System Change. Experts predict this trend to continue.
Integrative medicine guru Andrew Weil believes the nation’s health-care crisis will continue to deepen and as it does, “the cost-effectiveness of integrative medicine will make it more and more attractive,” Weil said.
–J.D.
Meet my mom. She’s our family’s systems manager. That would be the parent–mom or dad–who makes sure Sally gets to violin lessons, Jack gets to the tutor, and gym shorts for all are clean. That Barbara Schneider, a University of Chicago professor of sociology, considers such parents “systems managers” for their families’ lives is not all that odd when you consider “you have to be worried about today, tomorrow and what’s going to happen next week. . . . You’re engineering your lifestyle in ways that really don’t give you a whole lot of time to enjoy anything but really just plan for the next activity.”
Which is why Schneider considers flex time the most crucial issue facing families in the year ahead. “Whether families have limited income or lots of resources,” she said, “having quality time with your children and your spouse gets squeezed . . . with a workplace culture that encourages you to be productive and where an individual feels a responsibility for working.
“Without any kind of flex-time opportunities, without the discussion for more flex time, we’re going to see more people considerably stressed and concerned about the amount of time they’re putting into work and what the implications are in terms of their relationships with their spouse and their children.”
Schneider, along with fellow University of Chicago sociology professor Linda Waite, studied 500 American families. Their research is the core of “Being Together, Working Apart: Dual-Career Families and the Work-Life Balance,” due out this winter from Cambridge University Press.
The issue of flex time “has to be part of a national discussion,” she said. “We have to be able to work and figure out–whether it’s a law firm or a service industry–how can we manage this so that we are supportive of family life.”
–Judy Hevrdejs
Hey, honey, grab the car keys, the cafe latte and the cornflakes. Americans eat an average of 4.6 times a day, says Chicago-based market researcher Mintel. Those meal units aren’t all being consumed at a table, especially since the U.S. Census Bureau found that drivers in a typical American household log something like 21,000 miles each year. That makes on-the-go food hot–especially stuff that fits in the automobile cup holder.
Frito-Lay’s Go Snacks and Campbell Soup’s Soup at Hand are prime examples, according to Lynn Dornblaser of Mintel’s Global New Products Database. Other on-the-go concepts per Dornblaser: Kellogg’s Drink N Crunch (a cup-shaped container that keeps milk and cereal separate until they mix in your mouth) and Kimberly-Clark’s Kleenex in a round container designed to fit into a cup holder.
–J.H.
Would Popeye chug bottled water? He might, if it were enhanced water–bottled water with vitamins and nutrients–which is riding the wellness wave in the almost $9 billion bottled-water market.
“You’re seeing a lot of activity planned in enhanced-type waters in 2005, particularly from the bigger companies. Pepsi. Coke. Nestle,” said Gary Hemphill, a senior vice president at Beverage Marketing Corp., a New York-based research and consulting firm. “When you see the larger companies jump into these segments, there tends to be a lot of noticeable activity because they have the strength to put behind the brands from a marketing standpoint and distribution standpoint.”
–J.H.
Super Duper kid foods rule! Beverages aren’t the only products that will be infused with vitamins, says Susan Moores, a registered dietitian in St. Paul and spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. Manufacturers are trying to create more nutritious kid-friendly foods. Unfortunately, some nutritionists say they’re going about it all wrong. The foods will likely be highly processed, then fortified with nutritional ingredients.
“I believe we’ll see the gap continue to widen between `real’ food and highly processed food,” said Moores. “There will be a great rift between the two–fewer foods that kind of straddle the middle ground of slightly processed. We’re moving more toward two camps–the fresh food side and the ready-to-eat with minimal consumer effort side.”
Moores says the good news is that she expects to see more whole-grains products that appeal to the mainstream consumer. “There’s a buzz about whole grains in terms of their positive impact on health,” she said.
–J.D.
Fitness finds its roots. The nation’s workout watchdog, the American Council on Exercise and Fitness, says we’ll continue obsessing over our midsections as we head “back to the basics,” with core-strengthening workouts and time-efficient routines.
Not only will shorter workouts become more widespread, but fitness consumers also will be looking for balance, whether through activities (Tai Chi, yoga and pilates), or equipment (foam rollers, wobble boards, Bosu balls).
Consumers also will see more functional training, a phenomenon that has crossed over from rehabilitation to fitness, said Mark Kaufman, president of AthletiCo.
Functional fitness emphasizes movements that enhance coordination, strength and endurance in everyday activities, which is necessary these days as lifestyles have become more sedentary. It helps people exercise several muscles and joints together rather than working a particular muscle or group of muscles.
To address the needs of the time crunched, Kaufman expects mini-classes, or slimmed-down, 30-minute versions of the one-hour spinning or aerobics classes, to grow in popularity.
And massage therapy and other spa services that keep the Baby Boomers in top form also will continue to grow.
“It will become more sport-specific,” said Kaufman. “A golfer’s massage might target the hip, low back and extremities, all joints and muscles commonly associated with injuries and soreness.”
–J.D.
Leisure time with a feel-good bonus. A good number of us volunteer in our schools (27 percent), through religious organizations (35 percent) and in our communities (12 percent), says the Census Bureau.
And we’re increasingly taking that spirit with us when we travel. Some 55 million people opted for philanthropic travel in 2004, according to the Travel Industry Association, by taking a trip that helped the environment, a culture or the well-being of the residents of the place they visited.
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Opportunities ranged from snorkeling with sea creatures in Belize, where a portion of the profits go the preserve the habitat, to a walking tour in Italy that supports small businesses and helps restore buildings and ancient works of art.
–J.H.
You’ve got the frock, now try the chocolates: Fashion’s Ralph Lauren has RL, his restaurant on Chicago Avenue, so why shouldn’t Armani do chocolates? Well, Giorgio has. Since 2002, he has opened Armani Dolci at several stores around the world. The most recent was last month at Toronto retailer Holt Renfrew–which will happily ship the goodies to the U.S. And now that fashion house Gucci is hot to build a global chain of luxury coffee shops–the first opened mid-December in its Milan accessories boutique–are we in for more fashion designer-blessed food?
— J.H.
Does America need coconut-flavored tequila shots? Just when you figured you had this tequila thing down pat–the whole salt-licking, shot-slugging, lime-sucking ritual–a bunch of premium tequilas showed up, with all sorts of sniffing and swirling. Now, tequila liqueurs–a flavored or sweetened spirit–are tempting savvy sippers.
The most recent introduction? That’s probably Agavero, a liqueur made from 100 percent tequila (reposado and anejo), then flavored with essence of Damiana flower, which is purported to possess aphrodisiac qualities. It’s been called a “fusion of the masculinity of agave and the seductive power of Damiana.”
It also “adds layers of flavors,” said Anamaria Cesena of Jose Cuervo International. “It’s going to add a touch of smoothness. It rounds off the tequila. The Damiana softens it.”
And although tequila and tequila liqueurs are already on the market, things could get even more interesting later this month when Mexican regulators are expected to vote on whether to allow flavored tequilas.
Such a move doesn’t surprise Beverage Marketing’s Gary Hemphill. “It makes sense given what’s happened in the other segments, particularly with vodka,” he said, “where we’ve seen an amazing proliferation of flavored vodkas come to the market. So I would expect you would see a lot of activity there from a new-product standpoint.”
–J.H.
A sniff’s not just a sniff. Not when it involves aromatherapy. We’ve been customizing foods and beverages during the last couple of years, so why not scents for home and body, suggests Mintel’s Dornblaser. In addition to Procter & Gamble’s Scentstories, a CD-like unit that plays disks with various scents, the Body Shop now offers a case of nine small vials of scents with consumers urged to “invent your scent” by spraying two of the scents together.
–J.H.