622059 Sat May 23 09:39:09 -0700 2009 31 29 Not About Food 0 4708946 My mom had saved a 1950 Chicago Sun-Times story about what scientists thought life would be like in the 1980s. One prediction was being able to rely on protein pills for nutrition, instead of food... in some widespread way. The only prediction of the whole slew of things that had come true (at least by the 1990s) was not flying cars in use everywhere, etc., it was baby monitors that could be used to check on infants from elsewhere in the house. So anyway, what are your predictions for how food and its consumption may change over the next 20 years or the next 200 (or more if you like)? I wonder if at some point we will indeed see the 'meat slabs grown in a lab' kind of thing, given that they've been working on growing skin and other tissues in sheets for > a decade now. I predict over the next 50 years that the trend to more 'boutique' not-so-industrialized food production will be increasingly supported by monied consumers concerned about factory farming and health implications. Fish-farming for that group may change too as consumers get increasingly interested in what foodstuffs their food has ingested - for instance you may get more fisheries raising fish for their Omega 3 content, like some eggs are ranched now. But some consumers will insist on fish farmed in natural environments beyond what's in the fish chow. Now, as to food production on a mass scale for everybody? That's a whole other ball of wax, or something. Sat May 23 09:39:09 -0700 2009 40486 Cinnamon 1 4708956 Two words: Soylent Green. Sat May 23 09:48:20 -0700 2009 4708946 226942 al b. darned 2 4717932 First thing that came to my mind LOL DT Wed May 27 05:10:18 -0700 2009 4708956 11291 Davwud 1 4709713 I predict that the void between consumers of processed foods and consumers of natural foods will widen. In other words the 2 extremes of consumption will diverge even further than now. Sat May 23 17:36:33 -0700 2009 4708946 134265 sueatmo 2 4709745 Your right, but I think it will be a 75/25 split. 25% natural 75% garbage eaters. I can see it now, semi trucks hauling cheese sauce in tank trailers. Sat May 23 17:57:28 -0700 2009 4709713 140140 mrbigshotno.1 2 4710166 Yeah, you convey well there what I didn't quite put into words but meant. Although there has been quite a bit of public rumbling about the state of the American diet lately and all those things like banning trans-fats, so there could be an outside chance that the populace gets steered a little back toward what real food is. But I'm not holding my breath. Sat May 23 23:19:21 -0700 2009 4709713 40486 Cinnamon 3 4716496 It is just too easy to get take out or cruise the frozen food aisle. And how many kids have been raised drinking orange and apple juices, but don't eat an orange or apple very often? How many moms use instant mashed potatoes? Give their kids toaster pastries? It is just so easy not to do much real cooking. I think being 2 career families makes it easier to justify and perhaps financially easier to do. Tue May 26 14:45:42 -0700 2009 4710166 134265 sueatmo 2 4723110 That was my first thought as well. I think "everyday" home-cooked food is going to continue to dwindle. People who take the time and trouble to cook will want to use predominently natural/organic/artisan ingredients. Already, there's a significant percentage of the population (mostly under 35) who if they cook at all, cook only when they want make a something special and thus are willing to pay for premium ingredients. The rest of the time they eat out, do take out, use prepared foods (from junk to gourmet), etc. Thu May 28 15:17:36 -0700 2009 4709713 10159 Ruth Lafler 3 4726815 One positive thing I think is the development of local farmers' markets. In our area many municipalities have started them, and they seem to have a following. Our town finally got a market, I went and bought lovely strawberries (organic to boot!) and asparagus. Not many vendors though. Perhaps it is too early. But the place was packed with customers. This was nice to see in outer suburbia. Perhaps there will be more of us cooking fresh than I think. Fri May 29 19:05:46 -0700 2009 4723110 134265 sueatmo 1 4710648 The global outlook is grim given the combined results of climate change, soil degradation and loss, population growth, water scarcity, land conversion, and depletion of petroleum reserves. Sun May 24 09:23:09 -0700 2009 4708946 36661 Sam Fujisaka 2 4710713 As Humphrey Bogart said to Ingrid Bergman in the most romantic scene in Casablanca: "we'll always have......tilapia". Or something like that. I'm not from Paris. Sun May 24 10:01:51 -0700 2009 4710648 57170 Veggo 3 4724042 ""we'll always have......tilapia"." Well, actually, we'll likely always have squid and jelly fish. better get used to it! That's all that will be left in the oceans soon. I am also thinking that if someone can make cockroaches palatable, it'll be a boom business. Thu May 28 21:57:55 -0700 2009 4710713 89969 moh 1 4717815 HYDROPONICS.... the wave of the future(no pun intended) Wed May 27 03:14:49 -0700 2009 4708946 176650 Lenox637 2 4717891 Cinnamon, if I recall there was something a few yearg ago on National Geograpic about some who has ALREADY figured out how to clone meat. He just cant figure out how to do it at a price that allows it to be economically feasible ( I think it said it currently costs something like 5-10 thousand dollars a pound). That being said I think that cloned meat will be a big part of our furture. Between the need to arrest the increase in land destruction for animal cultivation, the demands of the worls for "cruelty-free" meat, and the simple fact that, realitiscally too many people like the taste of meat to make any sort of globaly vegtarianism/veganism possible (at least not a voluntary one), some sort of edible muscle cloning is pretty much the only available remaing option. Oh, and given the heath issues that are brought up with many animal products, it will not suprise me in the least if such meat is eventually genetically engineered into something more "compatible" with the heath needs of the human body (maybe meat that just has "good cholesterol" or something like that) On the darker side it will not suprise me if the food crisis/heath crisis eventeually leads someone to create a mandatory national diet/rationing system, where the goverments will tell people what and how much to eat and drink, and that is all you will be given acess too, eventually eveyone will probably just be fitted with some sort of perpetual intravenous food delivey system and eating and drinking will be no more. Wed May 27 04:37:23 -0700 2009 4717815 24492 jumpingmonk 3 4718450 Re the meat growing I may have seen that article years ago. If I recall, it's not cloning per se (at least I don't think so - may be wrong), but culturing existing cells to grow in sheets much more simply. There are already products out there, I believe, growing skin-type cells for burn-unit usage and other applications. Wed May 27 08:14:07 -0700 2009 4717891 40486 Cinnamon 3 4718788 I think culturing is more likely to take hold than cloning. Cloning doesn't help a lot with the land use, pollution or animal cruelty as the animals are still "born" as babies and raised to full grown animals for slaughter sale. Culturing would allow producers to "grow" just the parts that people want to eat without actually killing a sentient being. For the record, the idea of cultured meat really creepy. Wed May 27 09:48:35 -0700 2009 4717891 135311 mpjmph 4 4719334 Oh I'm sorry I meant culturing. I just used the word "cloning" without much though. What I had in mind was indeed the growth of muscle masses not whole animals. I agree that simply copying animals would indeed not solve much, though I would espose it in cases where the desired animal is extinct (I've always had a dream of finding out what aurochs (wild ancestor of the cow) tasted like (it was hunted to exinction around 1603). I would also have loved to be back in the days around the turn of the century when it was fairly common, when a mammoth was found frozen in the Artic, for the finders to make use of it by eating the meat (since back then, only the bones and maybe the skin could really be preserved in a museum setting) If such perfectly preserved mammoths were found today, I rather doubt that such and act would be allowed (the scientific community would demand every fragment be preserved for study, now that preserving the whole thing is feasible. Wed May 27 12:23:48 -0700 2009 4718788 24492 jumpingmonk 5 4720618 I've got the same issue with that last part as with ice-core samples. Something about waking up cold-hardy microorganisms after thousands or millions of years! Wed May 27 19:21:17 -0700 2009 4719334 40486 Cinnamon 6 4723029 But for the somnolent ice-core critters, isn't global warming sort of a snooze alarm? Thu May 28 14:51:25 -0700 2009 4720618 57170 Veggo 7 4723473 Aaaaaaaghhhh! Thu May 28 17:40:15 -0700 2009 4723029 40486 Cinnamon 4 4722794 Culturing meat, while not quite yet at a commercial level, is well under way. See http://www.new-harvest.org/faq.htm Thu May 28 13:37:16 -0700 2009 4718788 14386 BobB 5 4723478 Will be interesting to see how that goes. Thu May 28 17:42:06 -0700 2009 4722794 40486 Cinnamon 1 4723081 There's a lot to be pessimistic about, particularly from a Chowish and/or locavore standpoint. As the conglomerates continue to swallow up well-established older brands and consolidate their operations, the distinctive qualities of those products are disappearing at an increasing rate, even though the companies deny this. When Smucker's bought out White Lily and moved the milling operation from Knoxville to Memphis, they also stopped buying and milling the East Tennessee wheat that White Lily had used exclusively and started buying wherever met their basic specifications. They deny that the new product is any different from the old, and point to all their lab analyses for proof. Shirley Corriher disagrees, and points to her biscuits as proof. I know whom I believe... Thu May 28 15:06:54 -0700 2009 4708946 11478 Will Owen 2 4723125 Yes and no. I agree that mid-size operations like the one you mention are going to be squeezed out. On the other hand, there are now several places in the Bay Area where you can get "artisan" (for lack of a better word) flour grown on small farms and milled in small quantities. Basically, I think we're moving toward a dumb-bell shaped food supply: food will either come from huge agribusiness operations or small producers (the quantity and variety of products available at farmers markets and other outlets for small producers is increasing), with not much in between. Actually, to be more accurate, a model shaped more like my dog's favorite squeaky toy, with a large bulb at one end and a small one at the other, and a narrow neck in between. Thu May 28 15:22:54 -0700 2009 4723081 10159 Ruth Lafler 3 4723934 How is that any different from when people first began to move to cities and had their food supplied by farmers from the surrounding countryside? Some farmers brought in large quantities of lower quality stuff for the masses while others brought in luxury products for the elites. This same model applies to all consumer products. Some buy mass market goods and others prefer artisan products. Haute couture or designer brands, vs. inexpensive jeans and t-shirts, original art vs. posters tacked to the walls. There is always a strong mid-range and people will select things from all categories according to their tastes and wallets. Thu May 28 20:50:45 -0700 2009 4723125 32444 MakingSense 4 4723949 My point was that the newly co-opted subsidiaries would slip under the radar. I bought some Laura Scudder's peanut butter last week because I refused to buy Smucker's, only to find that Laura Scudder was now a Smucker's brand. And after I'd parked in a Starbucks "Reserved for coffee customers" space outside of my Vons store, and gone in and bought a package of Peet's French Roast, I discovered that Peet's is now owned by Starbuck's! The co-optation is massive and pervasive, and damned hard to keep track of. Thu May 28 20:59:07 -0700 2009 4723934 11478 Will Owen 5 4724145 Peet's is not owned by Starbucks. That's an urban myth that's been debunked in such places as Snopes and Chowhound: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/327589 Thu May 28 23:13:54 -0700 2009 4723949 10159 Ruth Lafler 6 4725408 I did not read of the Peet's/Starbucks connection online or in anyone's blog. I read about it in an article about Starbucks in the LA Times Business section. Perhaps the reporter was confused. Or perhaps, as they're very low on reporters these days, they got some overworked staffer to write it up on his or her lunch break... Anyway, if Ruth has it right, I can once again pull my favorite stunt: park my car in the front-door-adjacent "Parking Reserved for Coffee Customers" spaces at the local Vons that has the Starbucks kiosk inside, then go in and buy a pound of Peet's. OK, it's silly, but when you get old enough opportunities for guerilla stunts can be hard to come by... Fri May 29 10:56:44 -0700 2009 4724145 11478 Will Owen 7 4725596 Peet's and Starbucks have a long, tangled history, including at various times, common owners (that is, people who have owned portions of both Peet's and Starbucks). But Starbucks has never owned Peet's -- in fact, in googling around to check this, I ran across quite a few discussions of how Peet's is proving to be stronger competition than ever for Starbucks, since Starbucks is contracting after having over-extended itself, while Peet's is still growing. Fri May 29 11:45:36 -0700 2009 4725408 10159 Ruth Lafler 5 4725351 This is hardly new. Food products - and other consumer goods - have always been bought by other companies when the original enterprises failed or the families that owned them wished to get out of the business. They might have simply changed ownership to someone who continued them as-is or the new owners made changes. Or they became part of a larger company. Then there are lots of coops like Nieman Ranch. Their meats are raised by small independent farmers to their specifications. Wheat for flour is raised by individual farmers. Oranges for juice, almonds, etc. by farmers in coops. They're marketed under various brand names. Chickens are raised using company-supplied chicks. All branded. None of this stuff is artisanal, but the company oversees a certain level of quality even at the mass market level. Is Laura Scudder's higher quality than Smucker's and worth more at retail? They may produce different products at varying levels and price points. Fri May 29 10:39:02 -0700 2009 4723949 32444 MakingSense 4 4723960 In 98 words, you warned me that golddiggers are alive and kicking. Gracias! Thu May 28 21:03:37 -0700 2009 4723934 57170 Veggo 1 4723088 gourmet insect preperations Thu May 28 15:09:00 -0700 2009 4708946 135229 thew