A Nutritionist Weighs In On #FoodTok’s Biggest Trends

TikTok is where you go when you want to show off your simple, delicious, and sometimes, straight-up bizarre homemade recipes (looking at you, “girl dinner”). Users have been going viral for incorporating raw vegetables, homemade yogurt treats, and water steeped with greens into their daily routines, but when it comes to taking actual nutrition advice from the app’s foodie community, you should take everything with a grain of salt. So, are the alleged perks of these snacks a total misconception? Maybe, which is why a nutritionist spoke with Bustle to weigh in on #FoodTok’s biggest trends. Spoiler alert: You might not want to trust everything you see on the internet. Huge if true.

From raw carrot salads to gelatin water, viral TikTok meals that boast positive results are hardly a new phenomenon. But with so many trends circulating on the FYP, it’s hard to know which ones are worth the hype versus which fail to deliver on their promises. Enter Abbey Sharp (@abbeyskitchen), a registered dietician who has built her TikTok following on wellness myth-busting and taking a stance on anti-diet culture. Here, Sharp shares her unique perspective on all things #FoodTok regarding three viral trends circulating on the app.

Mustard & Cottage Cheese Plates

The mustard and cottage cheese snack combo has hit FYP in a wild way lately, thanks to @tiffanyymagee, who paired the ingredients with a range of different easy-to-find foods like carrots, chicken sausage, pickled okra, and asparagus in a June 16 video. The hashtag #cottagecheeseandmustard has 24.4 million views as of July 13, and according to Instacart, both products have seen a boost of +90% in sales over a two-week period. The proof of its popularity is in the pudding — er, cottage cheese? Though the creator didn’t explicitly mention any health benefits in this initial post, the video started a greater conversation about whether or not eating raw vegetables is a good idea.

Sharp warns that foodies who are “new to this trend of veggie snack plates” shouldn’t go in eating raw vegetables right away, as they can be harder to digest or high in “FODMAPS (fermentable carbohydrates that can cause gas and bloating).” Don’t let that deter you from the dish completely, though. Instead, the expert suggests easing your way into it by “mixing cooked and raw vegetables until your gut can adjust to the extra fiber.”

As for other adjustments you can make to the recipe, Sharp shares that you can also add healthy fats like nuts, olives, or avocado to balance out the protein from the cottage cheese and fiber-rich fruit and veggies. If you’re not a fan of cottage cheese or mustard, the RD recommends swapping the ingredients for a Greek yogurt dip ripe with herbs, spices, and maybe even a ranch dressing seasoning packet. Yum!

Strawberry Yogurt Bites

The viral strawberry yogurt bites can be made with just three ingredients: strawberries, yogurt, and chocolate. Though it’s unclear who started the delicious trend, the related hashtag has over 78 million views on TikTok, so there’s no denying the dessert’s popularity.

If you’ve been eagerly awaiting the right moment to try this recipe, you’re in luck, because it is totally Sharp-approved. “I love this recipe idea!” says the dietician. “I think it’s a really fun way to get your chocolate fix while sneaking in lots of fiber (from the berries) and protein (from the Greek yogurt). It’s a refreshing summer dessert that is satiating and satisfying.” That’s a winning food combo if I ever heard one.

Plus, because it’s a fermented food, Greek yogurt not only boasts probiotic benefits, but also contains calcium, B12, selenium, and zinc as well, per the expert. To up the nutritional value of the dessert even more, Sharp recommends adding chopped nuts into the yogurt “for healthy fats and crunch.”

Lettuce Water

Despite its unappealing name, the lettuce water trend started making its rounds on the FYP after @callmebelly shared a theory that drinking the water from boiled romaine lettuce can supposedly make you “sleepy.”

“The hot water is gonna cause the lettuce to release something,” the creator said uncertainly, before reporting their eyes felt heavy 20 minutes after drinking the concoction. “I usually go to bed at 3-4 a.m. This is [wild],” the TikToker wrote in the caption.

Though the creator claimed the hack worked at the end of the video, Sharp is much more skeptical. “People are always looking for a quick fix for health problems,” she remarks.

That being said, this theory didn’t just come from thin air. The dietician explains that the initial experiment, which was tested on rats, contained “highly concentrated extract, which would be far more potent than any amount of steeped lettuce leaves.” In other words: If it works for you, it’s probably a placebo.

As an insomniac herself, Sharp understands why someone would want to give this hack a try. But if you’re looking to actually catch some Z’s, the expert suggests turning to foods that support good sleep through their “unique nutrient composition” instead, such as turkey, chamomile tea, kiwi, and tart cherry juice.

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Abbey Sharp, registered dietician and content creator