The future of food
When Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner came out, I was mesmerised by its undeniably fantastic soundtrack and effects, but I was truly bowled over by the predictions for our future life in 2019. And whilst we still wait for synthetic humans…or do we??? So many of the ideas that presented themselves in cinemas around the world are now everyday fixtures, not least the environmentally damaged world described in the film with the acid rain.
So, here we are now in 2021 and I thought it would be an idea to predict what food will be like in 2030…I haven’t the imagination to start thinking about a similar 37-year vision so 9 years will suffice.
Predictions for the future of food:
Less meat and dairy. customised diets, outlandish vegetables, robot chefs and guilt-free gorging
In 2030 food will be focused on you. It will be bespoke and delivering for your genome. If scurvy was stopped with citrus fruit, then it makes sense we will learn precisely what foods keep us in tip top shape and that will be the focus of all our diets. Too farfetched? Well, it was laughed off boats when it was suggested in the 1800’s sailors should eat lemons and limes as well as biscuits.
This personalised nutritional approach will be the future, with each of us being scientifically accessed via our genetics and DNA with bespoke diets or supplements that keep us a-ok. But don’t worry if you only eat pizza that will be fine as everything will be in it. And it will have no relevance to dough, cheese, and tomato sauce, but you will taste it as a margarita pizza. Balanced diet or not, you will have very specific opportunities to minimise disease, obesity, and illness through this approach.
DNA testing will unlock the healthy future.
But we only want to eat natural food stuffs? Well, we are not now are we with all the re-breeding, genetic crop modifications and new varietal developments that have gone on since 1982. Carrots weren’t originally orange, and I know there was sheep born in a shed with no mother, conceived miraculously …….I could write a book about something like that…..
So, by 2030 we will have less animals, with petri dishes replacing fields of sheep and cows, and when we do want the perfect pig, we won’t breed them over a generation, we will merely insert DNA from one perfect specimen into another to improve yield. The same with all crops, we will splice DNA into another item to improve, taste, vitamin levels and visual appearance. The level of our ingenuity is currently limited only by the author of this article.
Sounds scary, until I think of the humble peanut and imagine a world where nobody again has an allergic reaction to one. DNA’d out!
By 2030 Silicon Valley will host five of the largest Food companies of all time. Impossible you say and you would be correct. Impossible Foods is one of these future juggernauts of the sector focused on the environment and health. When Pat Brown founded Impossible Foods, after previous companies had made him a multi-billionaire he decided to go for plant-based foods rather than find a cure for cancer, as saving the World was “a bigger issue”.
“But it’s not meat” I hear many cry and I agree. But by 2030 you won’t know the difference as Neurogastronomy will be the future. Neurology and food science will be combined your brain and all your senses with science.
How many programmes have we watched with Chefs wafting sprays or smokes around or indeed eaten in restaurants with a bottle of scent and a recorded noise being played as we munch on black hay and taste egg and chips. Farfetched? Well, I visited my parents the other day and they had run out of logs, so had a fire “burning” on their tv to “keep warm”. Ok they are 80 and enough said…but hopefully makes a point?
We’ll be eating Algae, worms and insects packed in edible seaweed, sent by drones and unmanned vehicles to our homes. Why would you go to a supermarket, that’s so 2025.
I remember reading an article about nanotechnology and laughing about the thought of releasing several “nanos” into my hair, which would stay and cut it for me without me knowing and then it was done.
Imagine if we ate some in a developed banana, cereal bar or piece of bread and they repaired bits and pieces inside us as and when required. Maybe they could get rid of some of the deep wrinkles on my face whilst they are at it. Or maybe they could check my gut through and save me having to touch my toes too often in my later life.
Too far? Well for some we already have microchips in any vaccine for the horror of Covid, at least that’s what the trusted tweets on my feed suggest by Alan from Ilford.
Anyone who knows me will say I’m the least fat person there is. So that fact that we have all grown over the years is of absolutely no concern to me at all. But I guess type 2 diabetes is not helping our health and wellbeing and might be best got rid of. By 2030 we will be able to as that dirty junk food with lashings of everything and more will be calorie appropriate. Chips will be guilt free. Things will be as sweet as you want them, using coating technology, as salty as we love without salt.
Thinking about this article, I read that we all on average eat a peanut too many every day. (obviously not everyone until we have DNA’d the pesky things) ….It didn’t sound much but that peanut a day makes half a kilo a year. I’ll be 4.5 kilos heavier by 2030 so the future can’t come soon enough…..or can it.
No, I for one am looking forward to a world of 3d printed food – I have seen a world first a 3d printed pizza. For a liquid nitrogen pot that sets everything I want at home and talks to the new Alan of Ilford who is now a Skinned Robot working in my Kitchen at home.
The future of food is exciting unless you are over four years old. “Alan you better make that omelette perfectly otherwise Harrison Ford will be round”.
If you wish to discuss the future of your business and how Focus can help get in touch with Stephen via Email or call him on 07831 310354
