Our predictions in 2014 – how accurate were they?
It’s that time of year again when journalists and pundits (and us, occasionally) share their predictions about what will be ‘hot’, and occasionally what will be ‘not’ for the forthcoming year.
Generally speaking nobody bothers to check a year later if these predictions were accurate or way off the mark, certainly not the people that made them. So, unless you’re a politician, it’s pretty safe to gaze into your crystal ball at this time of year without any worry that your predictions will come back to bite you twelve months down the track.
The other thing is that – and this is our excuse anyway – sometimes it takes longer than a year for a trend to become evident. And so, in a spirit of honesty and transparency, we’d like to come clean on the predictions we made about food and cooking trends we spotted not last year, but almost exactly two years ago, and see if we got it right or stuffed up.
Here are the predictions we made…
Fat is back (and sugar is the big baddie)
It’s alright, we won’t say we told you so. Judging by the amount of pork crackling consumed at various Christmas gatherings we’re guessing consumption of fat is OK again. Except we can’t remember a time when pork crackling wasn’t delicious and eaten by everybody… (but all that sugar in Christmas pud doesn’t seem to have dented its popularity yet either).
VERDICT: TRUE
Fermented Food
According to SBS in an article in June (How Sauerkraut is leading a food revolution), sauerkraut is leading a food revolution. We just haven’t seen it dominate the supermarket aisles, but we may be shopping in the wrong supermarket. It is apparently really easy to make yourself – all you need is a big cabbage and a big knife to chop it, plus a few other ingredients. IO Shen do not have a special sauerkraut knife yet, so the large chef’s knife is probably the way to go.
VERDICT: TRUE (ish)
Dinner Parties
OK we think we got this one wrong. 2017 maybe?
VERDICT: FALSE
Woodfired (everything)
Chimineas and outdoor pizza ovens are still a thing, judging by the amount of room given to them in Bunnings. But recent statistics* indicate they are the equivalent of millionaires’ yachts for normal people – nice to look at but never used.
VERDICT: FALSE
Going Native
We also predicted an upturn in the consumption of alternative meats, particularly kangaroo. While kangaroo has certainly not replaced beef on the Australian dining table, sales of kangaroo meat are growing. As John Kelly from the Kangaroo Industry Association of Australia said back in June, kangaroo meat has a marketing problem…
“Kangaroo has been the red meat of choice amongst Australian consumers for the last 40,000 years, so it’s really only in the last 100 years or so there’s been a bit of a hiccup in its marketing program.”
We may also have been a little ahead of ourselves, with experts cited in this article predicting a greater consumption of kangaroo meat by 2050. Only thirty six years out.
VERDICT: TRUE (ish)
Out with the carbs, in with the protein and the veggies
Certainly not universally adopted, but this one continues to be a growing trend.
VERDICT: TRUE
Skipping the three square meals a day
This referred to fasting, the practice of occassionally taking a break from eating, of a day or two without food (but with water) 3-4 times a year. We have no information one way or the other whether there are more people doing this than in 2014. What we can say is that one of our team will be giving it a go in 2017 and we’ll be able to report back!
VERDICT: FALSE
We’re giving ourselves 4/7 on this one (do you agree?). Not a great score, but maybe better than getting a monkey to throw darts at a dartboard.
So we’ll give the prediction game a miss this year and maybe – once you’ve forgotten everything you’ve read here – we’ll have another go at the end of 2017.
*this is what’s now called ‘post truth’, that is, completely made up, previously known as ‘a lie’
