The Latest Food Trends

Fads concerning what we eat come and go. There is a lot of concern about our over consumption of fast food and increasing obesity, diabetes and heart disease. It's especially worrying that children are getting less exercise and eating unhealthily. Food trends have for so long been associated with speed and convenience, but some new voices are beginning to be heard.

A recent development in the UK has seen the banning of commercials for snacks such as sugary breakfast cereal and potato chips to be shown during children's television programmes. This follows the campaign by celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver to introduce more nutritious meals into schools. The campaign was successful in prompting the British Government to take action. Cooks in schools are being re-trained and the meals budget is being raised. Out with the French fries and in with vegetables.

Everyone is very busy these days and it's tempting to pop a ready meal into the microwave at the end of a tiring day. Parents are not passing on cooking skills to the next generation and cookery is getting squeezed out of the school curriculum. Consequently, the growing generation don't know one end of a broccoli from another.

Something has to be done, and it's an international problem. As the developing economies in Asia grow, more women are going out to work and their traditional shopping and cooking habits are changing. Many are going to supermarkets instead of to their local market stalls. It's already been reported that Japanese children are becoming overweight. In Western Europe, food trends are changing too. We all think of French and Italian families enjoying a leisurely meal cooked with fresh, local produce. They still do, but there are growing food trends toward processed food and ready meals, as people try to fit in work commitments with life at home.

Organic food has become very popular over the last few years and it is more easily available than ten or twenty years ago. It's still more expensive than conventionally produced food though and blue collar workers tend not to be seduced by food trends which affect the weekly budget.

Some food obsessions seem comical to us now. Remember those dinner parties in the 1970s when we all huddled round the fondue? That was also the decade when we put everything on a little stick, like cubes of cheese and pineapple. We thought our food trends in the '70s made us so sophisticated.