Holy Trinity

In the book of Instagram, well-being is the new religion. We see this through yoga shots by the sunset, beautiful selfies in an exotic destination and artistic self-portraits in a high-contrast city background. But the original apostle, the true Messiah that landed the groundwork for those who followed, was what’s in our plates. Food. Specifically, #foodporn.

We often say that the good life comes from a healthy sense of balance and equilibrium. If that’s the case, food is leading the race to get us to that Holy Trinity of body, mind and soul. Through our bodies, it offers healthy servings which we welcome and enjoy, but also absorb for its functional benefits. Through our minds, it offers a modern alternative to Nirvana, where all our senses rise with the tide. Through our souls, it brings us back to the Original Sin of the sweet teeth among us: the short, but well deserved, treat.

The latest research into food trends suggest that we’re not just paying attention to our stomachs, but specifically to our guts. Bacteria are becoming less of a thing to be feared, and more of a thing to be embraced and taken advantage of. In short, gut-friendly is the new user friendly.

None of this is completely new, since the original purpose of food was to give us proper nutritional values that ensured we could live healthily and, well, not starve and die (sorry, calling it as it is). But these days, with science and technology playing a bigger role in our lives, we see a more methodical and exploratory approach to the gut benefits of what are called ‘super foods’.

If you’ve ever heard or read about so-called probiotics like kimchi, miso and kefir, you’re onto what we’re saying here. Their appeal isn’t so much in how good they taste, but how good they are for us because they offer us what are effectively ‘healthy bacteria’. These influence not just how we digest food, but also our immune system and how we generally feel. Our digestive system is often known as the ‘second brain’, thanks to the millions of neurons that line the gut and release important chemicals that influence our moods and emotions. Serotonin — also known as our ‘happy hormone’ — is one of them. But food doesn’t just affect how we feel; it might actively affect how we think.

Growing up in Lisbon, my grandmother always said that fish was the best brain food. If I ate more fish, she said, I’d get smarter as the days went by. My school grades weren’t bad, and I did grow up eating a lot of fish, so maybe she was onto something there. Science now says she definitely was.

A new strand of appealing ingredients in foods that are designed to help increase our cognitive abilities — also known as ‘nootropics’. If you look at ingredients like turmeric, salmon, eggs, dandelion greens and jícama (essentially, Mexican yam), you’d find a nootropic element in them. A nootropic, in essence, is a substance that improves our mental functions, from memory, to intelligence, motivation, attention and concentration.

The beauty of it? There are no side effects (apart from perhaps feeling full after eating too much). In fact, there are a few more indirect effects to it, such as an increase of energy, fewer effects of brain aging and increases in our brain’s ability to change and deal with stress. Want to be more open-minded? Want to cope with something at work? A salmon toast might help get it sorted.

Or just grab a cup of tea. Tea has a psychoactive compound called L-Theanine, which is proven to reduce anxiety, increase blood pressure and diminished sleep quality. It also seems to enhance our own attention levels. In summary, most people might argue that in order to pull off a big project — like writing a magazine about food — you need a bucketload of coffee. It seems science suggests instead a nice salmon and eggs meal and a cup of tea.

Wait. So food is great for its functional benefits in our gut, and it can also help power our own brain abilities. Does this mean it will become something we value for its effectiveness, instead of just for the pleasure of consuming it? Are tasty treats going away forever? Not so fast, cowboy.

Just because we’re looking at more functional benefits in our three major daily meals, it doesn’t mean food as pleasure is going away. We know, from the way many people order food online, that’s not the case. And it seems that the times of ordering also have something to say about that. Look, I’ll just cut to the chase: the ‘fourth meal’ is now totally a thing.

This isn’t just some niche emerging movement of people who are craving a snack late at night. Jonathan Moore, executive chef for Waitrose, says that “we’ve been watching the fourth meal for months (…) We’re eating differently. We have breakfast for dinner, dinner for lunch — everything is less structured. The fourth is the final meal, which is normally a treat.” We also know that searches for food delivery tend to peak sometime between midnight and 4am.

Part of it might be due to the rise of snacking. Part of it might be changes in lifestyles. Part of it might be about different family structures. The opportunities for retailers and food delivery companies here are huge, but I think it’s more interesting to reflect about what it says about us as consumers.

We’re actively carving out more moments for a light snack, which suggests we want more convenience to cater for those specific moments. And that’s how we get back to food delivery: it’s not just something that has a technological effect, because the human effects are already being felt.

This might be a chicken and egg problem. We’re not quite sure if more food delivery options spawned the fourth meal, or if the fourth meal spawned more food delivery offerings. One thing’s for sure: the way we eat, and when we eat, is being influenced by what our phones allow us to order on the spot. That’s the focus of the next few pages: what food delivery means for consumers when we’re all chasing this Holy Trinity of food for the body, mind and soul.

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