The first time I had matcha was at my friend’s house about five years ago. She whisked me a perfect cup and all I could do was stare in astonishment at this green coloured beverage looking up at me. I had heard of matcha but never tried it before. It tasted grassy, sure, but I didn’t hate it. Back then, the matcha train was still standing on the platform like Vande Bharat stands at the Mumbai Central station, for a long time.
While the Japanese have been swearing by the benefits of this green elixir, in India, the popularity has been recent. A wave of people now wake up to get their favourite iced matcha from the neighbourhood coffee shop right after a pilates session, on their way to grab a large bowl of granola and yoghurt, and of course, multigrain avocado toast. The sudden burst of clean eating, with people chasing quinoa bowls and avocado toasts, hasn’t escaped culinary fascination.
The clean eating trend is a conscious movement towards replacing processed food with unprocessed, whole foods and incorporating more nutrient-dense foods in your diet. Younger adults are consciously swapping their 1 am shawarma cravings for a chamomile tea at 10 pm.
Work-life balance isn’t the only thing this Gen Z generation is rallying for, they’re also actively moving towards a healthier lifestyle by incorporating exercise, hobbies, and cleaner eating choices. In fact, we are drinking so much matcha that supplies around the world are running short.
We spoke to experts, restaurateurs and young adults to dive deeper into this shift.
“It’s definitely a conscious lifestyle change this time. Earlier it could be passed off as a trend, but post Covid, health has become a serious concern. Healthy eating has become the primary objective across all age groups, especially the younger generation, and in fact it will continue to grow much more rapidly as awareness spreads,” says Lifestyle Clinical Nutritionist Tripti Gupta and Founder of iPink The Color Of Health.
Twenty-three-year-old Ishani Udas, studying in the Netherlands, made a complete switch to clean eating last year. “I made a switch to reverse my PCOS and hormonal issues. It was a conscious lifestyle choice. I had already inadvertently started choosing healthier alternatives but I needed some time, help and effort to figure out which ‘type’ of healthy and clean eating worked for my body.”
Udas cut out almost all processed food, reduced meat and alcohol intake, and incorporated more fresh vegetables, fruits and millets in her diet. “It helped in making me feel less bloated. I started feeling lighter, had more energy and (so far) it has successfully helped regularise my period cycle,” she says.
Mumbai based 28-year-old marketing professional Ava Gilder, at the start of this year cut out sugar from her diet in an attempt to build a healthier lifestyle, “It was terrible at the start, I was cranky and irritable. But as I went further on, I eased up on cutting it out entirely and replaced it with healthier options like honey and jaggery. That’s made me feel more energetic and more awake. I also paired it with a consistent workout schedule and that’s made me feel leaner and stronger too,” she explains.
This conscious switch is also reflecting in the food choices young adults are making when eating out, urging restaurants to offer healthier alternatives, create new menu sections, or even revolve entire concepts around healthy eating.
“There is a clear demand for vegetarian options and healthier alternatives. For example, customers often request to swap traditional wraps with multigrain bread or add multigrain crackers to their hummus,” says Sarfaraz Ahmed, Corporate Chef, Passion F&B India, which runs restaurants like Zaatar W Zeit and Avtara specialising in healthy food alternatives.
According to Gupta, Gen Z is taking their health very seriously. “They are observing frequent early deaths and strokes, especially in younger people, due to heart attacks and blood clots. They are paying far more attention to genetic predisposition to diseases in the family viz. diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, cancer etc. compared to millennials. They are rapidly turning to healthy alternatives like vegetarianism or veganism, choosing less processed foods, staying away from alcohol, smoking, red meats etc.”
Gilder attests to this, “It was definitely a conscious lifestyle choice because I had a few health scares happen around me, and it kind of woke me up to make me realise that I needed to be more cognisant of what I put in my body.”
“I looked at my family’s health history and realised I needed to make some changes. I was also fuelled by wanting to be healthier for myself and my body more than anything else. Eventually, once I started lifting regularly, I saw the clear benefits eating healthy gives you and never really looked back,” explains 28-year-old Rhea Sugwekar who works as a Regulatory Researcher.
This conscious change is quite visible in the way young adults are also ordering food, “These reflect a growing preference for nutrient-dense, unprocessed ingredients. We also see increasing demand for freshly baked, preservative-free breads and oven-finished dishes, with diners consciously choosing fresh-over-processed options for both taste and health,” Ahmed explains.
The internet is also contributing to this phenomenon. Every other food content creator is sharing healthy recipes or cleaner alternatives, while health experts bombard scrollers with ways to balance meals and build more sustainable diets.
Udas points out that online trends also help take away the stigma that clean eating is difficult or inaccessible compared to quick hacks like ordering online. “I think our generation (due to multiple factors) recognises the need to fuel our bodies in ways beyond ‘instant’ meals. Because of how normalised it is becoming, it’s easier for those who want to access or begin clean eating to actually start. I think it’s a great shift as it also teaches you to be self-reliant, independent, manage your time more wisely, and ultimately this shift rewards you in more ways than one. It’s not just me, my peers are also gravitating towards healthy eating and generally following a healthy lifestyle,” she says.
It also generates a sense of community and encourages you when you notice that more people in your similar age group are actively adapting to a new lifestyle. “Health is deeply community-oriented, so when you have a good circle of people working towards similar goals, you help each other stay on track. I’ve also seen more clean/healthy eating content on my feed in the past few years. Could be my algo, could be a collective awakening,” says Sugwekar.
Clean eating may have started as an internet-fuelled aesthetic, but for Gen Z it has clearly evolved into a conscious lifestyle choice. From swapping shawarmas for chamomile tea to urging restaurants to rethink their menus, this generation is showing that health isn’t just a passing fad but a priority. Whether it’s matcha mornings or millet dinners, clean eating reflects a larger shift, a desire to live with balance, intention and longevity in mind. And if the current wave is anything to go by, it’s less of a trend and more of a cultural reset.
