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Popular food & drink trends you don’t get

WillPS said:
I'm not sure I would consider cooked breakfasts, condiments or alcohol to be trends.

Yorkie wraps was a trend. Bubble Tea is a trend.

Sushi could be a trend I suppose.

A foodstuff which has been around longer than the oldest person alive and has endured in popularity throughout... fair to say that's not a trend.

The oldest toxin known to mankind... definitely not a trend.
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Perhaps “trends” was a poor choice of word on my part. I essentially meant “things that are popular”, but I couldn’t think of a more succinct way to put it.
jon81uk said:
To be honest @Matt N , your list reads a bit like someone on the autism spectrum and their list of don't likes.
None of them are really trends just personal preferences. I think love/hate of condiments is quite a common one for people with autism?
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That would make a lot of sense, seeing as I’m on the autistic spectrum.
 
After 23 years now in supermarkets, there are many trends I've seen but I wouldn't say any annoy me as such. I suppose I "get" them because they've been explained to me. The most interesting ones are:

The massive decline in canned meat.

Decline of canned veg and pasta.

Increases of fresh food (particularly prepared) and decline of core ambient products.

The rise from almost non existence of Free From and Vegan ranges.

Decline of core ingredient products in favour of prepared (such as ready meals and prepared veg).

Small decline of traditional fruits and vegetables in favour of ones that 20 years ago would have been considered "exotic" such as Avocados (there's no stopping them), fresh herbs, yams, Dragon Fruit, Asparagus etc.

Milk alternatives going from a shelf to half aisles in ranges.

Decline of bitter and stout and rise of ales.

Prosecco was almost non existent a decade ago.

Decline of Fortified wines and Perry's.

The onward rise of energy drinks.

Non sugar fizzy drinks started outselling full sugar equivalents 11 years ago.

The massive increase in seasonal food events. It was pretty much Christmas and Easter 20 years ago and that's your lot, now Valentine's, Mother's Day, Halloween and religious holidays such as Ramadan are huge whereas some hardly got a look in in years gone by.

Most interestingly, packaged Fruit and Veg has risen in sales compared to loose. This is despite a trend away from plastic packaging although I think this is more to do with supermarket efficiencies than it is about consumer trends.

Distress and impulse purchases are also up and basket spends have been lowering for years in favour of more regular shops which is a far more expensive way of shipping (Online sales also more expensive, 3% of the market pre pandemic and now over 10%). This is despite a poorer economy and massive rise of discount supermarkets.
 
Matt N said:
Hi guys. Food & drink is a big element of our everyday lives, and often, certain trends become very popular among the general population and become accepted as an everyday staple. But are there any of these food & drink trends that you just don’t identify with? Are there any where you’re finding yourself asking “why is this so popular”? Which popular food & drink trends do you not agree with, if any?

I’ll get the ball rolling with some of my personal nominations. I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not the most adventurous when it comes to food, and I have quite a basic palette:
  • Cooked breakfast/Full English Breakfast - Starting off with a big, controversial one! I’m not sure how popular cooked breakfast actually is abroad, but in Britain at least, a massive fry-up, or a Full English Breakfast to give it its proper name, seems to be a staple of many Brits’ diet, and the thing most people look forward to most about going to places like hotels. But personally, I’ll admit that I don’t quite get the hype. Don’t get me wrong, sausages and baked beans are great, and I quite like hash browns as well, but they’re not the sort of thing I’d ever think to have for breakfast. And the rest of a Full English doesn’t really appeal to me that much, personally (yes, I’m a meat-eater who surprisingly doesn’t like bacon, and I also don’t like eggs either). I understand why people like it, but I’m personally more into sweeter things for breakfast, and I’m also someone who doesn’t like to fill up on too much in one go; at a hotel, for instance, I’d always go for the Continental options over the cooked.
  • Condiments - This might sound a bit strange, but I’m not generally much of a condiments person, or at least, not to the same extent as most people. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind some condiments; for instance, I like apple sauce with pork, I like custard or ice cream with a dessert, and I also don’t mind a bit of gravy with a roast dinner (although if I had the choice, I’d personally go for a more moderate quantity as opposed to having the whole plate absolutely swimming in it). But on the whole, I’m not fussed on condiments. I like my chips plain, I like plain burgers (or “naked”, if you’re in a fancy restaurant), I like my salad plain, without any dressing, and in general, I don’t personally identify with society’s love of smothering everything in some kind of sauce or dressing.
  • Alcohol - I don’t know if this is just my age or unique to my family in particular, but it feels like practically everyone around me loves alcohol, and loves a good drink. However, I’ve been 18 for over 6 months now, yet I’m still teetotal (which is apparently the term for “I don’t drink alcohol”), and I don’t have any huge desire to change that any time soon, and I’ll admit I don’t get the general hype surrounding alcohol. That’s for multiple reasons. Firstly, while I’ve never actually tasted a true alcoholic drink, I’ve smelt a fair few alcoholic drinks over the years, and I’ve also had a brief sip of both non-alcoholic beer and non-alcoholic gin & tonic when encouraged to by my family, and I can’t say that any of those experiences were particularly positive or drinks I particularly liked. I’ve always found alcohol to either smell too strong for me, have a smell that I generally find somewhat unpleasant or both. Secondly; I know this probably makes me sound overly neurotic, but I also don’t like the general idea of drinking something that has the ability to alter your mental state. I know that’s why a lot of people like alcohol, and I understand that, but personally, the thought of doing things and saying things while you’ve got a weakened grip on reality and potentially not remembering those things afterwards scares me. I apologise if that makes me sound weird, but that’s what I genuinely think.
So those are some of the food & drink trends I don’t personally follow. I apologise if any of that’s triggering or controversial. This is all up to opinion, after all, and I certainly get why people like the things I’ve identified above.

But what are some of the food & drink trends you don’t really get?
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On the breakfast front I have a breakfast baguette at work on a Saturday which is neither Bacon with Egg or Sausage with Egg. I always have a full English breakfast on holiday as it gives me enough energy to last to the evening for my dinner.

I can’t eat my Sunday dinner without condiments sauce on it and I have to have ketchup or Mayo on my chips with vinegar.

On the Alcohol front with me working most weeks 6 days a week and looking after the kids the other day while the misses works I could go weeks without a pint of Ale but when I do get to have a night out with friends I only have around 6 pints between 7.30 and 11 then get the bus/train home as the kids have me up around 7ish.

I think now people think it’s more cool to get stoned or take laughing gas for there entertainment.
 
rob666 said:
You haven't seen adult female dogs nursing kittens then?
There have been lots of examples of cross nursing, many young goats will suckle from the nearest cow.
Most recent one I have seen in the press is a cat wet nursing a baby squirrel.
Cross wet nursing is not common, but a long way from rare.
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Post-infancy, I should have added.

Not sure if really a trend or I just became more aware of them, but there seemed to be a big rise in burger chains over the last decade and I've just never been a big burger person. I look at these menus and there's burgers with a crazy amount of fillings, some bizarre combos also, and you can't eat the thing without it falling apart or the bread turning to mush. In my view, if a burger needs a load of extra fillings the patty can't be very good! I'll throw Five Guys into that too, never got the hype!
 
Afternoon tea - as a *cough* middle aged female this seems to be the go to event to celebrate any occasion. I just don’t get it. I can drink tea and eat sandwiches in my own home for relatively little money.

Also, bottomless brunch. The drinks on offer tend to be some awful prosecco based drink dressed up as a cocktail. I would rather pay more for less drinks but get drinks that I have actually chosen.


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Barbecues. If it's too hot to cook, just don't bother. Why give yourself the additional hassle of standing in the blazing sun and trying to cook a relatively simple meal in a really labour-intensive and extremely messy way, using an extremely unreliable heat source?

I just don't get it. If you want to get drunk in the garden, go ahead. And maybe order a McDonalds via Deliveroo.
 
Another idea - have a gas barbecue. Arguably more reliable. Yeah, there's the problem of losing some of the flavour you get from a traditional charcoal one, but it's so much quicker. Ever since we got ours, we've sometimes decided to just have a barbecue on the spur of the moment if the weather's nice!
 
I see barbecues as more of a social gathering than a trend. I don’t think I’ve ever got the barbecue on for just immediate family. It’s more a nice way of having people round without everyone crowding up your living room (til it rains)
 
NuttySquirrel said:
Barbecues. If it's too hot to cook, just don't bother. Why give yourself the additional hassle of standing in the blazing sun and trying to cook a relatively simple meal in a really labour-intensive and extremely messy way, using an extremely unreliable heat source?

I just don't get it. If you want to get drunk in the garden, go ahead. And maybe order a McDonalds via Deliveroo.
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I don't get it either. Certainly not my idea of fun! :p:(
 
jon81uk said:
To be honest @Matt N , your list reads a bit like someone on the autism spectrum and their list of don't likes.
None of them are really trends just personal preferences. I think love/hate of condiments is quite a common one for people with autism?
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@Matt N I was about to say the same thing especially in regards to the alcohol as I have known friends on the spectrum to say almost word for word your thoughts on alcohol, and I just wanted to say you shouldn't feel weird about it at all or feel pressured, especially being at uni! If you don't like the taste or the effect definitely don't waste your money on it.

Something I've never understood is bubble/boba tea, especially as I'm someone who is funny with food being different textures. Why on earth would you want something you have to chew in a drink?? Very strange to me.

I do love burgers but as @Danza91 mentioned I don't understand making burgers so big to a point where you can't physically bite into them. If you have to dissect a burger to eat it surely some ingredients should be taken out.

Matt.GC said:
Prosecco was almost non existent a decade ago.

Non sugar fizzy drinks started outselling full sugar equivalents 11 years ago.
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Out of curiosity would you say there is a similar trend with the rise in popularity of gin like with prosecco? Because it seems wildly more popular and available in more varieties than say 10 years ago.

I would guess the rise in popularity of sugar free pop was in line with the rise of popularity of things such as weight watchers and slimming world but I am quite young so I'm not entirely sure how prominent they were in the years before the increase in sales. In more recent years though I imagine it's due to the sugar tax
 
Gin has exploded in popularity in the last decade. A typical supermarket would have Gordon's, Bombay Sapphire, a 'value' one and an own brand one. Maybe a 'better' (Finest/Taste the Difference) too, and maybe a couple of other brands in big stores but nothing like what they have now.

Sugarfree drinks and diet foods have been on the rise almost my entire life - the biggest change has been the decrease in focus upon women in the marketing of these products.
 
WillPS said:
Sugarfree drinks and diet foods have been on the rise almost my entire life - the biggest change has been the decrease in focus upon women in the marketing of these products.
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I'm sure I've heard it's because of that focus on women that lead to products like coke zero and pepsi max being made as they were meant to be more "manly" and they were marketed more towards men, which I thought was interesting
 
I remember the first big low calorie drinks..."One Cal" brand...loads of flavours, but just one calorie in the can.
That was the revolution, then all the rest followed, if they had a low cal brand, it was pushed hard to compete, if they didn't have one, they soon did.
All in the seventies/early eighties, and the promotion was directed at women.
Lo cal drinks came in for men decades later, and generally avoided the word "diet", as real men do not diet, allegedly.
 
Heidi said:
@Matt N
Something I've never understood is bubble/boba tea, especially as I'm someone who is funny with food being different textures. Why on earth would you want something you have to chew in a drink?? Very strange to me.
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I hadn't ever heard of bubble tea and I had to google it - it sounds absolutely disgusting! :eek:

I have a problem with 'lumpy' food to be honest - especially rice pudding! My uncle made me some once when I was little and I just gagged! I tried it again recently to see if I'd grown out of the aversion but nope! (Oddly enough I'm completely fine with porridge.)

Can't do 'bits' in juice either - bleaurgh!
 
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