This decade saw some remarkable changes
in the way we eat.
From niche dietary restrictions
that became mainstream
to people lining up for hours
for the latest Instagram-friendly dessert craze.
Let's take a look at the most notable food trends
of the past decade.
Perhaps the purest way to punch up food,
from eggs to chicken wings,
is to add some spice.
Sure, hot sauce has been around for forever.
But going into 2010, Bon Appétit magazine
named sriracha the ingredient of the year,
and we launched into the new decade
with a newfound taste for the next big hot sauce.
Noah Chaimberg: The last 10 years have been great
for hot sauce because we've seen the establishment of
what was really a nascent craft-hot-sauce movement,
where a lot of people who had started out
working at farmers markets have now
established brands that are on the scene.
Craft hot sauce is here to stay.
Nico Reyes: Listen, if you do cook at home a lot,
you need a good hot sauce.
Lisa Paradise: You can add
spice and flavor at the same time,
and that is the beauty of the hot-sauce revolution.
Narrator: Hot sauce grew almost 25%
between 2013 and 2017,
with $700 million in sales in 2018.
41% of those sales were from independent producers.
So it's clear we've come a long way
from a bottle of Tabasco, and our mouths
have never been happier while still on fire.
Alana Yzola: Mm!
Medha Imam: That's so hot.
That's so hot!
Herrine Ro: I love the fact that you can eat a hot sauce
and have absolutely no idea where it's gonna take you.
That we are expanding
our flavor profiles, our palates, people.
Lisa: Your mom would be so disappointed
in you. And my mom would be so proud.
Herrine: This is a trend
that I will stand by until I die.
Narrator: The mall food court was never glamorous
and has gone increasingly out of favor
as mall traffic in general has declined.
But the 2010s have gradually replaced the notion
with upscale, aesthetically pleasing food halls,
trucks, and stalls that give you really good
sampling of the food that
that particular city has to offer.
No more plastic trays covered in Panda Express
or Buffalo Wild Wings.
Herrine: When you step into a food hall,
you're, like, stepping into
Blockbuster when you are 6,
and the movie options are limitless.
Taryn Varricchio: Everyone you're with can get whatever
they want. No one has to argue;
no one has to waste time being indecisive.
You just go to this one place,
and they have all these options.
Narrator: The 2008 recession also contributed
to the rise of food trucks,
with customers looking for cheaper food
and restaurant owners looking for less risky overhead.
Ben Nigh: Food trucks are a really good way
for people to incubate
and get their ideas out there.
Kinda get their foot in the door.
Narrator: With food truck and stall markets
like Smorgasburg in New York and Los Angeles
and Off the Grid in San Francisco,
people can experience the food-hall vibe
and try out plates from a hodgepodge of vendors.
Alana: I'm kind of known for getting
a lot of little things and then
trying it and then moving on.
Maybe a small meal here, and then you can [makes noise]
cross the street or, like, cross the hall
and then get another small thing,
and then you have, like, a collection
of a variety of foods.
Narrator: The food-truck industry as a whole
has grown nearly 7% each year
between 2014 and 2019,
with vendors taking advantage
of the rise in popularity
to try out new concepts, building a fan base
before investing in a brick and mortar.
Ben: Maybe someday all of, like,
the big, empty parking lots across Middle America
will be turned into big food-truck emporiums.
Taryn: What a dream.
Narrator: 10 years ago, naming the protein
found in most grains was more of a trivia question
than a diet restriction for most Americans,
but it's often based in serious health concerns.
Dominique McIntee: I have a cousin who has celiac,
and this was kind of before the time
when it really blew up, gluten-free options,
and I remember back in the day, she had
a really difficult time finding viable options.
Even though only about 1% of Americans have celiac,
an autoimmune disease that attacks
the small intestine when ingesting gluten,
there are a range of less-serious gluten intolerances.
A host of celebrities, from Gwyneth Paltrow to Lady Gaga,
also spoke out about their wheat-free diets.
The newfound interest in these foods
has led to a 2019 market for gluten-free products
valued at $9.5 billion,
up from $2.5 billion in 2010,
with gluten-free products lining shelves
and forcing restaurants to make gluten-free
alternatives available on menus.
And if you thought the world was winding down
from gluten-free diets, think again.
If there is one food this decade
has really managed to sink its creativity into,
it's desserts crossed with, well, other desserts.
Taryn: A hybrid dessert essentially
combines two things in one.
So it can be two desserts in one,
or it can be a croissant
with an everything-bagel seasoning
and cream cheese inside,
which this place called Daily Provisions does,
and it's really good.
Narrator: We've seen cake pops, Cronuts,
Bronuts, crepe cakes,
cookie and milk shots, churro cones,
macaron ice cream sandwiches, bubble waffles.
Truly, the list goes on and on and on.
Taryn: People are always gonna try to be innovative
with what they're making, and combining
two things that you know works
is just smart.
David Kemp: Charcuterie started hundreds and hundreds
of years ago, and that was
just the art of preserving meat.
Narrator: Gone are the days of sad plates
of processed cheddar and crackers
at your auntie's parties.
Taylor Rogers: Charcuterie is the art
of doing, like, prepared and cured meats
with cheeses and, like, nuts and crackers
and fruit on, like, a beautiful wooden board
and then serving it to all of your friends.
Shayanne Gal: It used to be, you just take
a regular platter of, like, some, you know,
day-old cheese and old meats and
just pepperonis thrown on a plate,
and now we have all of the add-ons.
We have the special mustards,
we got the special sauces.
Nico: I love when people add fruit, like, dried fruit.
That's a really good addition
that's, like, I don't see too, too often.
Celia Skvaril: It's an art form, and I appreciate it,
and I don't want to eat it
because I don't want to ruin it.
But then I eat it because it's really good.
Taylor: Like, when I walk into a party and I see
a good charcuterie board, I'm excited
because I know that the host, like,
put time into making that.
David: By far, the last 10 years have been
the best decade for charcuterie in America.
And, just, if you compare it to 30 years ago,
it's easily five or 10 times as large as it was.
Narrator: Another major diet trend of the decade
was an increased focus on vegetarian
and plant-based products.
The 2010s brought us more awareness of animal cruelty,
climate change, and health awareness,
all of which contributed to this rise.
No, that doesn't mean you're bound to see
more humans ticking "vegan" on dating apps.
The actual number of American vegans
is still around 3%,
but a whole lot more people are incorporating
meat-free alternatives into their diets.
Emily Hein: I'm definitely, like, a fan of cutting down
the amount of meat and dairy that people eat,
mostly for environmental purposes. I like both.
Narrator: Between 2017 and 2018,
sales of vegan foods increased 10 times more
than food sales as a whole,
with Beyond Meat burgers and Impossible foods
on the menu at food chains like
KFC, Dunkin', and Burger King.
Medha: I eat halal, and that means I have to
eat meat that's basically blessed in a certain way.
So, not many places in the United States
serve halal food, and therefore veganism
and the vegan movement has actually really helped me.
You want more from your food.
Lisa: Exactly. And I feel like now,
within the last 10 years, since it's taken off,
my vegan friends can eat,
at least in cities, can eat almost anywhere.
Because there is always an option
that's, like, a well-cooked vegan option.
Narrator: Sales of substitute meat went up
451% in Europe in just four years,
so while you may not encounter many more vegans
in the wild, "flexitarians," or people
who eat meat products in moderation,
is set to be the new foodie hashtag of the decade.
In generations past, milk meant
something that came from a cow,
was bottled, and ended up on your doorstep.
But these days, whether it's in
a carton at your grocery store
or whipped into a latte at a cafe,
you're probably going to have to specify
when you ask for milk.
Melia Russell: Let's see how many milks we can name
in the next 10 seconds. Irene Kim: Oh, my God.
Macadamia.
Melia: Rice.
Irene: Soy.
Melia: Almond. Uh,
cashew.
Coconut.
Narrator: Humans have been making "milk"
for centuries.
But sales of nondairy milk have more than doubled
in the last decade, so much so that
cow's milk producers are petitioning
the Food and Drug Administration
to debate whether or not something can even
be called milk without coming
from an animal that lactates.
The double down on oat, soy, coconut,
and other milk alternatives is another trend
that derives in part from environmental awareness
and the rise of flexitarianism.
Cow's milk requires a lot of land, water,
and fertilizer to generate,
not to mention cows' methane outputs.
Celia: Flat flavored water, I feel like, is disgusting.
Bubbly flavored water...
Dominique: Yeah. Celia: Is...
Dominique: It adds a little zest.
Narrator: Seltzer may be a fancy way
of saying water with bubbles,
but this very simple beverage
is a $2.3 billion industry.
Add some alcohol to the can,
and you have yourself a can of hard seltzer.
Celia: It's 12:59, so I'm drinking a LaCroix.
Anna Miller: The problem I have is
White Claw taking over all of the beer shelves
in the bodegas and trying to pretend that you're
a legitimate substitute for beer, because you're not.
Trisha Bonthu: OK, well, first of all,
there's plenty of beers.
Like, there's so much room for beer.
Like, it's fine if they take up a few shelves. You know?
Celia: I only drink hard seltzer.
It really doesn't give me as bad of a hangover.
I would rather have this than a beer.
Like, I like that it only has 100 calories.
Narrator: Competition to become
the most beloved seltzer has taken LaCroix,
Spindrift, and White Claw to spin out both
regular and alcoholic cans of bubbly water.
Even Four Loko is getting in on the game.
Celia: I think it's interesting now, though,
that these are available in bars,
because for a while they weren't.
Things that go in and out of style really quickly,
they don't bring it to bars.
Trisha: I think if beer companies invest in seltzer,
they're gonna make a lot more money.
Narrator: Chef Alice Waters is credited
with starting the farm-to-table-restaurant movement
back in the '70s,
and it wasn't until this decade
that it became commonplace,
with urban farming making it easier for people
to access locally grown produce.
Costal chains like Sweetgreen
have made locally sourced food the norm,
listing where each ingredient is farmed,
giving us the sweet satisfaction
of at least thinking we know
where our food is coming from.
Anne: They have on the menu, like, the exact farm
everything came from.
This meat, these vegetables are all in season
and came straight from the farm.
Tiffany Chang: You know, even Five Guys has
where our potatoes come from for our chips.
Anne: Our generation as well has, like, shifted
to a bigger focus on knowing where your food comes from
and also being healthier with the options you choose.
Although CBD has had a huge boom
in the last few years, it's obviously not new.
In fact, the first documented use
of cannabis-derived products for medicinal purposes
dates back to 2737 BC.
Marc Siden: CBD is a naturally occurring compound
of the cannabis and the hemp plant,
and the hemp plant, although it has a very low level of THC,
predominately has a nonpsychoactive compound.
It's been shown to really help with
anxiety, inflammation, pain.
Herrine: How do you feel about CBD?
Alana: I love it!
Anne: CBD is great because it just helps
enhance that relaxation factor.
I know people use it for different things,
and you can do it a number of different ways.
You can drink it, you can eat it.
Alana: They have chocolate, they have candy,
and there's so much different variety.
Narrator: With the legalization of marijuana
for recreational use in 11 states
and for medical use in 33 states,
public opinion of hemp-based products
has seen a swift shift,
and as a result, companies have been more apt
to start producing dosed foods.
CBD in food and drink is still illegal in some states,
but that hasn't stopped companies from selling it.
Marc: There are, you know,
prescription medicinal benefits,
there are everyday benefits, and the science
continues to get better, and we're wrapping it up
in a nice presentation so you could take it,
you know, on a daily basis and enjoy it.