Experts forecast that we’ll be eating more fat and insects, along with peas and local meat, and predict the next sriracha and quinoa.
Writing for Time magazine’s Time.com site, Josh Schonwald, a Chicago-based journalist and author of “The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future of Food,” decided to take a different approach to identifying key food trends for the new year. Rather than asking for lists, he went to “six carefully chosen experts—all industry people who live and breathe food trends” and asked each to just give him “one big food prediction for 2015.” That research led to this list of “the only food trends you need to know for 2015”:
- The Rise of Fat
“For most health-conscious people, fat ranks right up there on the no-no list with nicotine and smog,” Schonwald wrote. “But Kara Nielsen, culinary director of the Boulder, Co.-based Sterling-Rice Group, believes 2015 could be known as the year that more and more Americans get over their fat phobia.
“Nielsen isn’t talking about just any fat—not the trans-fats found in highly processed foods,” Schonwald explained. “She’s talking about natural, animal-derived fats. Real butter sales are at a 40-year high; cultured butter is surging in popularity; high-end burger joints, like Shake Shack, celebrate fat as an essential part of a better burger.
“And the trend seems to be broadening,” he added. “There’s a San Francisco restaurant selling a wildly popular chicken fat rice dish, [and] a rapidly growing Boulder company that only features full-fat yogurt. “Nielsen expects more high-fat dairy products, more fat-celebrating meat purveyors, and more higher-fat Asian foods to hit restaurant menus and grocery store shelves in 2015,” Schonwald wrote. “ ‘Americans are recognizing that the fear of fat that we’ve lived under for so long is erroneous,” [she says]. And it’s not just because of a foodie quest for flavor. ‘It’s also because of books like ‘The Big Fat Surprise’ that are making the argument that natural fat is an essential part of a healthy diet.’ [she notes].”
- Local Meat
“There’s near unanimity among food-trend trackers that the local-foods movement will continue to grow in 2015,” Schonwald wrote. “Darren Tristano is no exception. Tristano, who tracks the restaurant industry for market research giant Technomic, expects more local produce, more local beer, more local grains.
“But Tristano believes the big local story of next year will be local meat,” Schonwald added. “Californians will see more menus boasting of grass-fed beef from Niman Ranch; Chicagoans will likely see more free-range bacon from Slagel Farm. Diners in [Washington, D.C.] will see more chicken sandwiches from Polyface Farms.
“In short,” Schonwald wrote, “get ready for more restaurants to celebrate the local origins of their chicken, beef, or pork just as zealously as their local Brandywine tomatoes or radicchio.
- Insect-Powered Foods
“Restaurants serving grasshopper tacos and ant guacamole, entrepreneurs peddling cricket-powered powerbars—there’s been tons of media coverage of insect-eating in 2014,” Schonwald noted. “Yet most people regard it as a curiosity [and] more [of a] Fear Factor-fad than food trend.
“Not Suzy Badaracco,” he wrote. “The President of food-trend consultancy Culinary Tides believes insects will rise as a foodstuff in the U.S. far sooner than many expect.
“In picking insects as her ‘Food of 2015,’ ” Schonwald noted, “Badaracco said that insects draw on not one but three food trends: the growing interest in foraging, the invasivore movement (i.e., don’t kill them, eat them), and, the granddaddy of current trends, the desire for more protein. [Insects are protein powerhouses; grasshoppers, for instance, have about the same protein content as a chicken breast]. “Full-bodied insects won’t appear in your Safeway this year,” Schonwald wrote. “Get ready for them to arrive in processed form, especially protein-packed power bars, like Chapul and Exo.
“Badaracco expects insects, processed as flour, to soon become a popular protein sources for bakery and cereal products,” he added. “Full-bodied insects — tentacles and all? Further off, but coming.
“Badaracco sent a list of more than a dozen American restaurants that feature insect options,” Schonwald reported, “such as the ‘Grass Whopper’ —a burger made from cricket meat.”
- The Next Sriracha is Harissa
“A few years ago, it was the unpronounceable hot sauce that you might find in Chinatown,” Schonwald wrote. “Now, you can get a Subway chicken sriracha melt with a side of sriracha potato chips.
“Maeve Webster, a restaurant analyst for market researcher Datamonitor, believes the next sauce to experience a sriracha-like rise [will be] harissa, a spread of dried chiles, garlic, tomatoes, caraway, paprika, coriander, and olive oil that’s as common as ketchup in Tunisia,” Schonwald reported.
“It’s still largely unknown to Americans, but Webster says all the elements are in place for harissa,” he continued. “ ‘U.S. consumers can’t get enough of spicy foods. Harissa has a flavor profile that is both spicy and familiar,’ Webster says.
“Like sriracha, harissa is also versatile and can work in a wide variety of applications,” Schonwald added. “Last year, Datamonitor found that less than 3% of American restaurants included a harisssa item, but Webster noted that’s a more than 180% leap over three years. If Webster is right, get ready for the chicken harissa melt—maybe not this year, but soon.
- The Next Quinoa is Millet
“Melissa Abbot, Director of Culinary Insights at The Hartman Group, concedes that her pick for ‘Food of 2015’ is not very sexy,” Schonwald wrote. “Millet is, after all, best known as the main ingredient in birdseed.
“But Abbot believes that this avian staple could quite possibly become the next quinoa,” he continued. “Ever since quinoa exploded on the scene, the food industry has been in hot pursuit of the Next Great Grain, and there are plenty of healthful, gluten-free candidates.
“So why millet, and why not amaranth, sorghum, teff, or fonio?” he added. “It’s gluten-free, protein-rich, high fiber, and, Abbot says, has a superfood quality all of its own.”
“It retains its alkaline properties after being cooked, which helps in reducing inflammation, [so it’s] ideal for those with wheat allergies and sensitive digestion,” Abbot told Schonwald.
Another plus for millet, Schonwald noted, is that it’s local. “The Great Plains, especially Colorado, is one of the world’s major millet-growing regions,” he wrote.
- Peas
“This pick for ‘Food of 2015’ will not necessarily be found on restaurant menus or on grocery-store shelves,” Schonwald wrote. “You may even need glasses to notice it.
“Barb Stuckey, who is a vice president at Mattson, one of the world’s largest food product developers, describes Americans as being in a ‘torrid love affair’ with protein,” he continued. “While it’s debatable whether Americans should be seeking out more protein, the reality is food companies are responding to our love affair with protein by giving us more protein.
According to Stuckey, Schonwald reported, “Soy is one of the best, most widely available, efficient ways of fortifying foods with protein. But whether deserved or not, soy is falling out of favor,” he added.
“Food makers are searching for non-GMO, plant-based sources of protein and Stuckey says ‘the newest, hottest kid on the block is pea,’ ” Schonwald wrote. “Peas are high in protein and, as people gain more experience processing it, the flavor is improving,” he noted. “Look for pea protein to show up [on] the ingredient list of bars, cereals, beverages, you name it.”
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