To be a prophet: What do you think is the future trend of food?

August 04, 2020


To be a prophet: What do you think is the future trend of food?

The trend of diet is always changing.In the 1850s, fast food was popular for convenience and speed. In the 1960s, Julia Charles encouraged us into the kitchen to make a French dish that everyone could learn. In the 1970s, Alice Waters made authentic food out of local organic ingredients, and it was also healthy for the public to eat in restaurants. By the 1980s, Carlo Petrini began to advocate the slow food movement, challenging popular fast food. Every decade, people's perceptions of diet change. Looking to the future, it's time to take diet seriously.

            

The global population is expected to grow to 10 billion by 2050, which also means that there are more mouths to eat on Earth. Yes, quite a lot! The accompanying warming has reduced plant diversity, reduced nutrient content and reduced arable land, which means we have to prepare a smart plan.

I believe the solution to this problem is to start with plant-based food. Why would you say that? The reason is simple, animal-derived food brings a lot of carbon to the earth, far more than plant-derived food. For example, getting protein from beef and getting the same amount of protein from beans, the former on average produces 43 times more greenhouse gases than the latter. On the good side, we have seen a trend that people can now choose more plant-derived foods than past bland vegetarian diets.

Today we have tasty groceries, chicken nuggets without chicken, and fish without fish. Each food has a taste and sensory appeal similar to the meat. Whether these foods can be a healthier alternative remains to be confirmed. But they do have a smaller impact on the environment. It is estimated that the climate impact of a pea protein burger is one-tenth that of a beef burger.  

A glass bottle containing a variety of fruits and vegetables. What is the future of food? I hope it will be closer to nature and environmentally friendly.

 My hope for the future is that people's eating habits will become more flexible and diverse, such as a flexible diet based on plant-based foods and a small amount of animal food.

We also sincerely wish these technologies to create sustainable use of animal-derived ingredients. The most important thing is to make food more natural and environmentally friendly.

 Having the ability to change the future —— is like allowing food to protect our ecological environment while meeting the needs of population growth.