Hello!
In light of the recent attacks of both Paris and Beirut, I would like everyone to take a moment to reflect on this. Both attacks should not be tolerated, and we all should fight against terrorism and act more in the name of love and respect.
I was surprised to see some news concerning food, most of the media has been extensively covering the Paris attacks.
The main article on CBC was about the top 4 foodie trend predictions for 2016, which is fascinating in and of itself that this is an issue that people are paying attention too. The top 4 trends to watch for is: Bavarian inspired items, slow coffee, street foods, and mixology (cocktail making). The new foodie movements, which do seem to change year to year, is interesting because it brings more people into food and different new food ideas. Of course, a lot of it seems to be a lot of marketing to get people to buy various things, but this could have the potential to see people eating healthier foods. This is like when the kale trend, quinoa, and various non-dairy milks.
The article on BBC is on the food waste that supermarkets create. Grocery stores buy more food than what we need, as in our consumerist culture, that is something that grocery stores try to avoid having anything less than jammed, overly stocked food. However, this creates massive food waste because not all of this food sells. Some grocery stores try to donate this food, as featured in this article, but the overwhelming majority of the food is thrown out.
I worked as a cashier in a grocery store for a few years in high school/university. We had a high amount of food thrown out. Some was put in the staff room for staff, some non-perishables were donated to the local food bank. Yet most of the food was thrown out, especially produce and dairy items.
The top Tumblr post was posted by a user who’s screen name is foodiebliss, really connecting this theme to the CBC article. It is about two tone vanilla mini marshmallows, which the whole mini food thing has been a trend lately. Starbucks features cake pops, mini muffins are all over Pinterest, and the trend to eat smaller, tiny “cute” food is very trendy. This post reflects this, and reinforces the ideals that are placed for different types of trends.
The top Instagram post was about one of the foodie trends that they are predicting. They are guessing that more food trunks foods will be coming more popular in restaurants and foods that people eat regularly. This post features tacos and quesadillas, something that is standard Mexican-type cuisine, however there is new additions to make it exciting and new. The popularity of gourmet food trucks is apparent in cities–UBCO features a daily food truck on weekdays. Tacofina is an extremely popular food truck around British Columbia (out of Tofino). This will likely spring up new trends in what restaurants serve & how they serve it.
Foodie culture seems to be here to stay, and the emerging trends are reflected on social media. If food researches and policy-makers want to study what people are eating, and how they are receiving information, monitoring social media for foodie culture seems like the best way to go.
Works Cited
BBC News. “Viewpoint: The supermarkets’ guilty secret about unsold food,” BBC News, Nov 6, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34708775
CBC News. “4 food trend predictions for 2016,” CBC News, Nov 12, 2015. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/food-trends-2016-1.3316405