Amuse bouche...

Powder Trend

Carrie had all the tubs of different powders lined up on the table. They looked gorgeous. All the lovely colours and stylish design of them. They were a thing of beauty. Carrie felt like she did when she was 10 and used to collect notebooks. She’d line them all up and admire them, and swear that she’d write really neatly in all of them.

Laid out in front of Carrie was the maca and the blend of greens. She was going to start adding these to her smoothies, which would be great. Then there was the mix for stress and metabolism, which she’d sprinkle over her home-made granola, when she started making it. And there were kefir grains, and spirulina, and a turmeric latte mix, and even a skin-food powder.

It was all so thrillingly healthy. Carrie had read that powders were the superfood trend of 2018. She’d read that just a sprinkle here and there of the right powders could be life-changing. She lined them up on the kitchen counter — the toaster could go into a press, she wouldn’t be eating bread, anyway — and planned that she’d consume every single powder every day.

Carrie was going to be a new person by the end of January. Not thinner, Carrie would never say that, but a better version of herself. Carrie liked the idea of glowing good health. What Carrie didn’t like was vegetables.

Last January, Carrie had read that giving up meat for three days of the week could transform your skin, remodel your body and give you the glow. She’d even bought two trendy cookbooks, in the hope that they’d make veg taste OK. It still tasted like veg, though, even spiralized.

Carrie ended up eating baked beans three nights a week as result, and they didn’t do much for the glow. When she read that 2018 was all about the powders, Carrie was thrilled. They were a fast track to super health, with no stewing or chewing involved.

Carrie was a little bit worried about the green powders. They smelt a bit spinach-y for her liking, but surely whizzed up in a banana and pineapple smoothie, they couldn’t be bad?

The sticker on the tub said that one scoop would give her more energy than a double espresso. The other sticker on the tub said that she could have bought four months’ worth of baked beans for the same money.

Carrie viewed the huge spend as part of the incentive to stick with the powders. Really, Carrie thought that a diet should save you money on food and not cost you, but this wasn’t a diet. It was a lifestyle reassessment, but if her arse fitted into her jeans again, it would be a lovely bonus.