Food fads come and go, and not all of the trends that were huge in 2019 are going to
make it into 2020.
Will your favorites survive the new year?
Here are our predictions of what trends will fall to the wayside as 2020 rolls in.
While a cup of coffee is the standard morning beverage for most folks, in 2019, it was all
the rage to reach for much different concoction: a glass of celery juice.
And there were a lot of famous folks who chugged the stuff.
"Can I have a celery juice, please?"
"I'm not the bartender."
Celery juice was all over Instagram in 2019, being promoted as a miraculous cure-all, and
becoming a staple of the year's "morning selfie" game.
And it came from a weird place.
Vanity Fair says it first started thanks to Anthony William, the so-called "Medical Medium."
He claims to get medical advice not from science, but from spirits who are more medically advanced
than we are.
Once he gets his mystic message, he goes and spreads the word — in this case, through
Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop.
The green stuff has been said to help everything from psoriasis and acne to chronic fatigue
syndrome, acid reflux, strep, and shingles — but does it really?
UC Davis research scientist Rachel Scherr told the New York Times,
"There's no scientific evidence to support any of the claims being made."
Celery juice, while quite hydrating and perfectly benign, isn't nearly as medicinal as advertised
by the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, or a supposedly psychic doctor.
"I'm just gonna take a look here, I'm talking to spirits, so …"
It's not exactly snake oil, but we don't expect celery juice to transcend its trendy status
any time soon.
Freakshakes look pretty cool — and hey, no one expects them to be healthy, right?
These insane, over-the-top milkshakes have been all over Instagram for a while, but the
reign of the freakshake may be coming to an end in 2020 as more people realize just how
bad they really are.
Let's start out by saying that the American Heart Association recommends men limit their
daily sugar intake to 36 grams, and women limit theirs to 25 grams.
In a 2019 episode of Tricks of the Restaurant Trade, it was revealed that a freakshake — on
average — comes with a shocking 95 grams of sugar.
That's just an average, and some were found to contain up to 156 grams of sugar, depending
on how many donuts or candy bars you stack on top.
It appears restaurants are beginning to respond to those health concerns.
Toby Carvery and Frankie and Benny's, for example, were just two chains that announced
they were going to be taking freakshakes off the menu in 2019.
Whether it's for nutrition's sake or not, we're betting that the freakshake fad has
finally run its course.
The versatile and delicious avocado is always going to be pretty popular, but the Wall Street
Journal suggests its popularity has been fading.
In 2019, Australian agriculture group Costa faced some dire news: demand for avocados
was dropping.
And the swing was sudden, with the fruit going from the group's fastest-growing sector into
a drop that resulted in plunging profits and stock prices.
But that's not the only thing that's going on with this Instagram darling.
According to the Independent, crops like avocado are bad news for the planet.
It's a complicated problem, but here are the basics: avocado flowers are only open for
a very short time, and that means they're a terrible food source for pollinators.
Bee Aware says that only pollinators who forage for nectar will interact with an avocado,
and when you take huge patches of agricultural land and turn them into avocado farms, you're
hurting the pollinators we depend on.
The Loop says more and more forests are being cut down and replaced by avocados, and the
irony here is that the same demographic that loves their avocado toast also loves the planet
— so this one's going to be fading sooner rather than later.
From smoothies to salads, Instagram loves kale.
Just #kale alone has almost 3.8 million hits, but according to The Atlantic, the world's
love affair with this one-time salad bar garnish that looks better than it tastes might finally
be over.
Kale has been popular for a long, long time, and we can at least partially thank Gwyneth
Paltrow and her kale chips for this one, too.
But if you look to Google instead of Instagram, you'll find that searches for kale dropped
drastically at the end of 2019.
Plus, kale is trending downward for customers of fast-casual salad chain Sweetgreen, according
to an August 2019 report from Grub Street.
So, kale haters, rejoice!
Expect a lot less resistance in 2020, when we predict that the fad will finally fade.
Meal kits seemed like the perfect fix for millennials who worked long hours but still
wanted something different and healthy when they got home.
And for a while, it was insanely successful: Blue Apron was worth an estimated $2 billion
just three years after they opened their doors and started mailing.
But things may change in 2020.
In 2019, Eater reported that there had been a shift in attitudes surrounding mail-order
meal kits.
Demand for the services has started to slip, in large part due to the cost and the sheer
amount of packaging and waste they generate.
But there's something else at work here, too: many people who relied on them started to
enjoy cooking and meal planning, and thus no longer needed their meal kit training wheels.
Blue Apron alone has seen their stock plummet and a huge percentage of their customer base
disappear; according to industry trend site PYMNTS, the company saw a 33 percent decline
in revenue in 2019.
And PYMNTS says it's a trend they're seeing across the meal kit market: people love them,
but only about 38 percent of people who try them will stick with them... and that's the
opposite of trendy.
There are more than enough perfectly-made acai bowls on Instagram to give anyone some
serious breakfast envy, but here's the thing — it's starting to come out that they're
not nearly as good for you as most people think they are, and that news will likely
spread more in 2020.
And that's why they're trendy, right?
They're customizable, very pretty, and healthy.
In all fairness, they can be healthy if you make them at home, but if you go out and order
one from your favorite breakfast stop, you might be surprised at what you're really getting.
Just take it from Ilana Muhlstein, the head of UCLA's Bruin Health Improvement Program:
"You should really look at acai bowls as more of an occasional treat, not something you'd
have as a meal.
Think of them as a replacement for ice cream."
It's true: While acai is, indeed, good for you, most of the bowls you can buy contain
upwards of 50 grams of sugar — twice what the American Heart Association says you should
have in a day.
In order to make them healthy, you'd have to use water instead of juice, savory veggies
instead of sugar-filled fruits, and limit the size.
Not so Instagrammable now, is it?
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