What Will We Eat in 2020? Something Toasted, Something Blue

Oh great. I wonder how many forests or meadows or civilizations prosperous Americans will destroy in their constant search for the latest food novelty. I wish the Times would consider informing us of the consequence of the increased demand for blue foods and other exotica. Remember quinoa?

Sorry, souffled panakes (and omelets) and “brick” are both French in origin, widely made in old-time America, and now just being discovered by milennials as Asian adaptations of French recipes.

Dear Ms. Severson, Taiyaki are not "fish-shaped ice cream cones." They are two fish-shaped, soft "pancakes" sandwiching a filling of red bean paste (or sometimes, in more contemporary form, custard). If fish-shaped ice cream cones DO exist, they're not taiyaki.

Ironic that the image chosen to represent earth-friendly eating is of commercial processing of romaine lettuce, one of this year’s e-coli scares.

@ Miriam Lowenstein Long Island Your comment about the two flowers: did you mean they are "editable", as in being able to be edited, or "edible", as in being fit for consumption?

I wish that my answer to Ms. Severson's question, "What shall we eat in 2020?", were more of pescetarian vegetarianism. Despite being omnivore tending to carnivorousness, this is the only diet I admire as the next best, borrowed from the medieval Cathars. Although I never became a full practitioner of this diet, I adopted their faith in Life as Eternal Struggle of Good and Evil. Pretty calming and not at all fatalistuc ...

it would be really nice to see the data on regenerative ag and some solid reporting. Good practices and part of organic ag but the carbon effects are over inflated. Climate crisis won't be solved by hype

Wonder about all the food insecurity faced globally—from inner cities in the US to cities in emerging economies to the isolated populations everywhere. Let’s pause a moment to consider those less fortunate as we quaff blue beverages and sample flower strewn salads!

The future would be for most of the affluent world to eat less. Fewer calories for the obese- kind of like the opposite for taxing the wealthy. I foresee that decree happening over the next century.

Yes straws were made of paper,until ,well not too long ago when tree huggers thought that was wasteful.So the plastic straws ,now killing everything that swims are better ,or worse ,maybe.anyhoo Blue Maize ,5,000 years old is still blue and the Inca weren't trashing the rain forest for cattle but they did have a solution for overpopulation ,called human sacrifice.Ahead of the curve they were ,one might say.

Dear Kim Severson, I needed a laugh today and you provided it! Thanks.

The flowers displayed scattered across a plate of greens and nuts were called coyote flowers. They are nasturtiums (orange) and pansies ( blue/purple). Both are editable, of course, and can be grown in flower pots on your deck, porch, or balcony. As fresh and local as you can get!

Re: Ice cream. My granddaughter loves mint ice cream but was really upset when back in 2014 she ordered a cup of mint chocolate chip ice cream in the French town of Honfleur only to find that it actually had real leaves of mint swirled through it. I think the French have been years ahead of us in that regard.

So is butterfly pea powder actually blue? Is there any other naturally blue food that is actually blue? )Not like, say, blueberries which are purple.)

This trend of charging a quarter for paper takeaway coffee cups really chaps my britches. If you bring your own beverage container to a coffee bar, you should be charged $.25 less than the full takeaway price because you are saving the store the cost of the cup. A local coffee company used to charge slightly more for in-house coffees served in crockery, rather than the paper-cup takeaways. They dropped that practice a while back. It’s a shame because it made sense: After all, the cups need to be washed by their employees. But I think a lot of customers just ordered the takeaway to save a little change, even if they were drinking it in the store. Keep in mind the crazy steep markup on coffee drinks. Even with labor figured in, the cost of a pound of coffee is recouped with the sale of the first few coffee drinks, at roughly $5 a pop. There are 32 shots of espresso in a pound of ground coffee.

I'm all for the buy locally, eat more plants, & smaller portions, but count me out on the paper straws and edible cutlery. Have you ever used a paper straw? They disintegrate almost instantly and taste awful. Even the blue ones. :-)

Eating solid foods Japanese style requires chopsticks and occasionally a knife, brought by the guest hidden in an external rib of a folding fan. How does then one eat the concoction on the photo at the head of this article?

With the obesity crisis, we can emphasize on lesser portion on the plates, less sodium & more fruits & vegetables. Don’t really care for the blue color, who sees this color on our foods on the daily basis? Unless you cook the purple cabbages ! My very last important points are to eat seasonal produce, buy locally grown vegetables and fruits, support our local farmers by going to the farmer’s markets regularly, this is usually good for the body for feeding with fresh produce and good for the soul for we know what we eat, lastly, we get to interact with the farmers.

What were the trends - predictions last year for 2019? How accurate were they? I think a hint might be in the end of this article: "Don’t be surprised if some of these fail to take hold."

Hmmmm Maybe we all eat less and what’s grown near us. We could make up a fancy name for what our grandparents did ; ) Happy New Year

Please no more of the algae lattes because purple and blue food rarely exists in nature (and when it does it often because of mold)...

It's really remiss not to point out that all this adaptogen and CBD hot air is only that--hot air. There is no evidence base for them. Treating them as if there is some sort of serious research basis is doing readers a huge disservice.

just bought some pea flower powder - nice! will hit my local korean patisserie later for some of that delicious looking bread

I hope one of the trends is wasting less food. That would mean smaller portions that cost less at restaurants.

We have had edible and biodegradable packaging and useable items since 2000. I taught classes giving students silverware made from edible, biodegradable corn. We could have been using it for the last two decades but good to see it is important now.