New Yorkers have turned away from plates and now eat their meals only out of bowls.
That bizarre fact comes courtesy of the New York Post, which took a deep-dive look into the "power bowls" trend taking over New York City at upscale salad chains such as Sweetgreen and popular smoothie shops such as Liquiteria.
"Even if I had the option to eat off a plate, I would eat out of a bowl," one bowl-obsessed woman told the Post about the trend.
It's not just the container itself that is drawing New Yorkers to these spots, the Post points out. It's the way the restaurants fill these bowls with a combination of lean protein, healthy vegetables, and tasty dressings for a good-for-you meal. It's all healthy and well balanced.
Plus, in a bowl everything can get mixed together instead of getting pushed around the plate.
A quick Google search proves the trend isn't new. Just searching around for grain bowls or quinoa bowls, one will find CBS News previously covered some of the best locations in New York for a "healthy meal in a bowl" last year and The New York Times even had a food article on making your own grain bowls back in 2014.
But according to the food-industry consulting firm Technomic, bowls are the hot trend right now and have seen a 29.7% rise in the entree category over the past five years.
There are even multiple bowl-focused cookbooks. "The bowl is a perfect vessel in which to create simple, delicious, and healthy meals," the blurb of Sara Forte's cookbook "Bowl + Spoon" reads. "When gathered together in a single dish, lean proteins, greens, vegetables, and whole grains nestle against each other in a unique marriage of flavor and texture."
As to why it's so popular, some people think the bowl makes everything a little more photogenic.
"The bowl is very Instagram-friendly, you can see everything," Lukas Volger, author of the cookbook "Bowl" told the Post.
Turns out, hundreds of thousands of Instagram users agree. Under the #bowl hashtag, which has millions of posts attached to it, nearly half of the pictures show healthy "power bowls."
Looks as if the bowl is here to stay — though there was never really any danger of that, to be honest.
