2012 food and dining trends: #1 {Real food is chic}

Welcome to CB.com's 2012 food and dining predictions. I've always loved postulating about where food and food culture is headed. Sometimes I'm spot on, and other times I've failed miserably. We feel that we have a pretty good pulse on this industry and want to look into that crystal ball and lay out some educated guesses on what the food retail industry may look like like in 2012 without any of the Nicholas Cage Mayan calendar nonsense.

Let's finish our 2012 predictions with the number one trend on our list. We're finally done.

The coolness of REAL food.

Real Food is food which truly nourishes and respects producers, consumers, communities and ultimately, the earth.  It is a fundamental food system--from seed to plate--that fundamentally respects human dignity and health, animal welfare, social justice and environmental sustainability. Suck on that Glenn Beck.

Some people call it "local,", "hippie communists", "green," "slow," or "sustainable". Most knowledgable people just call it "Real food". It's that simple. Real food is food that is as close to its natural and original state as possible. Real food is not produced in a factory, it is not engineered in a lab, nor is it full of artificial colors, sweeteners, or flavors. It's what your grandparents and great-grandparents ate. Real food doesn’t have a list of ingredients - it is the ingredient. 


The more I travel, more I see food provides slowly move into this world. Real food, in my mind, is the number one trend in food service today. Real food looks like what it is – a tomato that smells like a tomato and is ate in the heart of summer. The Decentralization of procurement in our country is because people are starting to understand the "why's" of eating healthy. Let's face it, Our food system is broken. From food riots abroad, to rising rates of diabetes and obesity here in America; from the carbon emitted by agriculture to the human rights abuses in the fields; it's clear our food system is in need of major change. Travel to many urban communities and see the food deserts that have served our youth and less fortunate. 

Government and big business have failed to step up to the challenge, with business-as-usual prevailing over the health of our bodies, our communities, and the Earth. There's a real movement happening and slowly the economics are going to make sense. When it does, you'll see a new opportunity of entrepreneurs, farmers and artisans who will capture our stomachs and minds with this new progressive approach to eating.

Here's to REAL FOOD. Raise your pint glass now.

2012 Food and Dining Predictions:

#10 - The inconvenience of Food 

#9 - Personal Investment and Ownership

#8 - Minimal is the new black

#7 - The fusion of family style meals and belittlement

#6 - Beer is King, not the King of Beer
#5 - Cloud Eating and Cooking
#4 - Grains, Grains. Grains and .....more Grains.
#3 - Grow your own
#2 - Rage against the food machine

Some weekend thoughts before you get all weekendy..

The way we eat has changed more in the last ten years than in the previous ten-thousand…..

-          Michael Pollan (Food Inc.)

Why do you have a kitchen?  Stop and think about that for a minute. Is it for the sparkling granite counter tops and the automated Kohler appliances? Is it for that stainless Sub-Zero refrigerator that can shave the perfect ice for your wine sangria? You might have a fine-looking Garland 4-burner stove that sits there for the vista of your guests to showcase your kitchen’s style and grace. It might be the place where you hang your car keys in prior to heading out to Longhorn Steakhouse for your Friday date night.

Sometime in the last 30 years we lost patience.

We are a pretty fast group of inhabitants.  We want everything high-speed and immediate. If I have to wait more than 30 seconds for my web page to load, I’m done and on to the next site. Hasty is the word in today’s tech savvy lifestyle. Food is no different.  We knew we wanted fast way back in 1951 when a popular trade magazine called “Fountain and Food” predicted, “Fast food type restaurants will soon do the lion’s share of business for breakfast and noon meals eaten out”. We have become numb to the thought of shared family dinners, cracking a new bottle of wine open with friends and heading out to your garden to pick that fresh basil for mom’s lasagna.

In its place, we have turned to our friendly food retailers.  We have created a frenzy pace in this country with food that is piggybacking our love for the quick tempo or friends in the tech industry are creating.  As somewhat of a tech nerd, I truly enjoy my gadgetry that gives me ultimate control over the information world. Currently I am typing this book on a Mac, which is sitting next to my iPad, as I occasionally converse on my iphone. I have bought into technology. But, some things in life are not meant to be coaxed into this medium.

Food being one of them.

Let’s take a step back into the fast food revolution, shall we?  Back in the early 50’s, people started becoming infatuated in speed. The automotive industry began pushing the “hot rods” and home construction was being built at a blistering place.  The friendly skies, were actually, well, friendly. Warren Spahn and Whitey Ford were rewriting the record books with their fastballs. People were seriously moving and shaking. So, what came next? Ah yes, the food.  A quote from the Christian Science Monitor in 1982 summed up the rapid increase of this new model of food service back in the late 1950’s,

“The fast food model was a quick success throughout the land, and two decades later it was conquering the world. The U.S. outcry against the infiltration from the south was matched in vehemence by our neighbor’s outcry of fast food imperialism and the eventual Americanism of their own societies.”

It’s humorous to think that the term “junk food” wasn’t coined until the mid 70’s. And, the wave of fast food that exploded into our country during these years truly summed up the term and introduced the American diet to colossal amounts of empty calories.  We as a society bought in. We bought into this crafted discipline of food shenanigans that played with our health for the years to come. Refined sugars, white flours, trans fat, salt additives, preservatives and coloring agents became our god deity and we bowed down to it often. Very often.

How did we fall victim to this?

We basically bent over and said, “Give me that whopper swiftly and often”. It was this generations credit default swaps. We believed that for $3-5 dollars we could eat and drink our way to a healthy well-being. The problem was that our bodies soon figured out this complex milieu and called us out. “You know what dickhead, that wasn’t real meat and lettuce and I’m calling you out with a little thorn called diabetes, enjoy. Call me when you will consider being an omnivore again.”

As a food industry insider with years of invaluable time spent at researching the Tom foolery of this retail game called “foodservice” and it's not pretty. We've  been hoodwinked and swindled into eating this industrial rubbish for too damn long. I’m calling it out for you and everyone that has bought in.

Step up. Start a garden. Shop at a farmer’s market. (In a non-hippie way of course.)

Amen and here comes Happy Hour....

Now bring me my PINT!