The 15 Wackiest Food Trends You ll Be Eating In 2016

We've had cronuts, we've had bone broth, and we've gorged ourselves on bao buns, so what on earth are we going to be eating this year?
 Well, prepare yourself, because in 2016, things are getting EVEN wackier.
From deep-fried insects to posh spam, even more exotic chilli sauces and turmeric, 2016 is set to test our taste buds like never before.

It's not all cray cray though.  Free from foods are continuing their unstoppable rise (Marks & Spencer has hugely expanded its range to include wheat-free flours and home-baking goodies) and Spam is back in vogue.  Yes, really.
So if you're an ambitious foodie and you like to keep abreast of food trends, read on.  (Just make sure you know how to pronounce them before embarrassing yourself in front of a waiter).

   


1.
Acai bowls
Warming bowls of oatmeal (ie porridge, both sweet and savoury) are continuing their strong game in 2016, but now they have a competitor in the form of acai. A Brazilian super fruit, the acai berry (it's pronounced 'uh si ee') is served as frozen pulp in a bowl laden with other fruits, granola, chocolate chips and nuts. 
A frozen smoothie in a bowl, basically.

Hearty, healthy, moreish, packed with nutrients and oh-so-hip, Google searches for 'acai bowls' have more than doubled this year. Fresh acai berries go off very quickly but you can buy frozen acai pulp in some specialist health shops, while powdered acai berry pulp is more easily available in high street health food stores.
New trend: The Brazilian superfruit the acai is now served as frozen pulp in a bowl with other added treats

2.

Free-from EVERYTHING!
With more people trying to eliminate wheat from their diet due to gluten intolerances, free-from foods are having something of a moment.  Most restaurants offer gluten-free options as standard, and supermarkets including Marks & Spencer even stock full gluten-free home-baking collections, meaning anyone with a wheat intolerance can bake their own treats without having to order special flours online.
The newly expanded Made Without Wheat range from M&S - which previously featured pastas, breads, cakes, biscuits and sandwiches - now includes over 70 products including gluten-free self-raising flour and baking powder, and mixes for white bread, Victoria sponge, white sponge and granola.
Helen Seward, M&S Nutritionist says: 'Information about our gluten free food is one of our top customer enquiries, so we know that a number of our shoppers are looking to avoid or reduce the amount of the gluten in their diet.
'As a result, we now have our biggest range yet for them to choose from, which allows our customers to bake at home with the family, pick up lunch on the go, create a delicious mid-week meals and choose ready-made options with our Made Without range.'
In March, M&S will be adding desserts and ready meals to the Made Without Wheat range, allowing coeliacs to enjoy a number of classic British and Italian dishes, including spaghetti Bolognese, macaroni cheese, syrup sponge pudding, rhubarb crumble, apple pie, cheesecake and trifle.
Gluten-free but love home baking?

 No problem - M&S has a new and expanded Made Without Wheat range
3. Turmeric
Yes, you've used the odd pinch to flavour and colour your curries, but in 2016 you're going to be going for it in great big spoonfuls.
Celebrity chef Gizzi Erskine is famous for her love of turmeric milk, also known as 'golden milk', a comforting hot drink made from turmeric and almond milk, and embellished with flavoursome ingredients such as coconut oil, cinnamon and honey.

It's packed with antioxidants, iron, manganese and anti-inflammatory properties, and turmeric may even help stave off dementia. Used in curries, stews and smoothies, turmeric is bright orange and joyful, and preparing to knock ginger off its perch.
Forget a little pinch of turmeric here and there - 2016 is all about great big spoonfuls of the stuff everywhere!
4.

Kombucha
Still drinking Earl Grey or PG Tips? Ah, you have a lot to learn. 2016 is set to be the year of kombucha, a fizzy, vinegary, non-alcoholic 'live tea' drink made by adding the scoby culture to tea.
Being fermented, it's full of probiotics, so great for people with digestive problems.

Some fashionable London serve kombucha flavoured with rose petal, lemongrass, nettle, Douglas fir pine and hibiscus. It can also be served inside an alcoholic cocktail instead of a less natural, and more sugary, mixer.
5.
Ube
Mash up purple Filipino yam, or ube, and use it like sweet potato in one of 2016's hottest new trends
Take one deliciously sweet and unspeakably bright purple Filipino yam (that's the ube to you and me), boil it, mash it up, turn it into ice cream, doughnuts and cheesecake, and you've got yourself a hot new food trend.

Similar to taro or sweet potato, it has been used since ancient times in cooking, and now it's back, adding bright splashes of colour, creamy textures and a glorious natural sweetness to all our happy plates.
6.
Poké
Move over sashimi. Budge up, ceviche. There's a new kid on the raw fish block and his name is poké (pronounced 'poh-kay'). A Hawaiian specialty, poké is a bit like sushi that's been jumping on a trampoline: cubes of raw seafood - particularly ahi tuna or salmon - marinated in a soy sauce and decorated with ingredients including sesame seeds, seaweed, avocado, cucumber, spring onion, mango, lotus chips, caviar, chilli pepper and edamame, then laid on a bed of rice or greens.
Bright, fresh, full of vitamins, proteins and antioxidants, poké is big news on America's West Coast.

In LA alone, you can get your poke fix in Mainland Poke, Sweetfin Poke, Ohana Poke Co, Poke Bar and Poke Stuff.
7. Throwaway bits
Restaurateur Fergus Henderson is known for extolling the virtues of 'nose-to-tail' eating, ie if you're going to kill an animal for food, you should have the decency to eat the whole thing, from its bone marrow to its brain.
Now it's the turn of vegetables.

Particularly burnt vegetables. And fish. And any other bits that might otherwise be left in the scraps pile after service.
Eco-conscious (and money-conscious) diners now want vegetables to take centre stage, and 'root-to-stalk' eating means we're eating more of the lovely crunchy beasts than ever before, chowing down on broccoli leaves, kale stems and sprout tops rather than leaving them to the rabbits. 
More and more 'vegetable-forward' restaurants - like Bruno Loubet's Grain Store in London - are making meat an afterthought, and doing things to vegetables that were previously unheard of - roasting whole cauliflowers, say, and charring baby leeks until they resemble coal. 
We know about nose-to-tail eating, but now it's the turn of vegetables - we're eating every last bit of them!
8.

'Nooch'
Well-read vegans will already be acquainted with deactivated nutritional yeast (known on the streets as 'nooch'), but now we all want in. A deliciously cheesy, nutty, buttery powder loaded with umami flavour, use it as a condiment a bit like you would Parmesan. 
Sprinkled on salads, pasta dishes, popcorn and mashed potato, nooch is heavenly good and packed with vitamins, minerals, protein and fibre.

Almost good enough to make us down steak knives. (Almost.)
'Nooch', or nutritional yeast, is a deliciously cheesy, nuttery buttery substance - use it as you do Parmesan!
Fermented everything is big right now - these Hop Gherkins, left, and Fennel Beets, right, are £5 from M&S
9.

Bugs
Market holders in Bangkok have been barbequing cockroaches and worms for wide-eyed tourists for years, but now it's happening here. A great source of protein and VERY plentiful, bugs and insects are predicted to be big business in 2016, either crispy as snacks or ground up as flour and added to power bars.

And the best bit? You've already got a garden full of them. Get foraging!
10. Koji
Koji, a naturally occurring fermentation culture, is going to be used more in British kitchens in 2016
Fermented food is big business, with pickled vegetables, yoghurt, kefir, sourdough bread, artisan beer, sauerkraut and Korean kimchi (spicy fermented cabbage or radishes) appearing on menus all over the world and keeping our guts happy and healthy. 
In Japan koji is a naturally occurring fermentation culture (also known as Aspergillus oryzae) that is used to ferment rice and soya beans and make umami-rich things like soya sauce, miso, mirin and sake.

Expect to see more of it being used in UK kitchens. 
11. Chlorophyll
Gym bunnies have been drinking liquid chlorophyll - the substance that makes plants green - for a while now, claiming the green goo is packed with magnesium, boosts metabolic function, aids digestion, cures bad breath and can prevent cancer.

The new wheatgrass, if you will. Now, restaurants are adding it to desserts. Croft Alley in LA swirls it into yoghurt; full of antioxidants and oh-so easy on the eye.
Chlorophyll, which is the substance that makes plants green, is being added to desserts in hip LA restaus
Sriracha mayo (£4, M&S) and Wild Sumac (£3, M&S) can bring a touch of heat to  your cooking in 2016
12.

Sriracha effect
This trend we love: #extrachillioneverything
When it comes to spice, we know what we like, and that's the heat cranked up to 11. 
The craze for Thai Sriracha (see-rah-cha) hot sauce has stared a revolution on our tongues, with other ethnic chilli flavours such as Caribbean Scotch Bonnet, Korean gochujang, India's ghost pepper and North Africa's sumac, harissa and dukka finding their ways into our larders, fridges and red-hot fiery bellies. 
This is one trend we really love - #extrachillioneverything
13.

Peasant fare
Comfort food will go back to ye olde roots this year, with heart-warming meals like granny made making a comeback. Cheaper cuts of meat (brisket, beef cheek and bavette) will win out over fillet steaks, as will meatballs, sausages and slow-cooked stews. 
The rise of street food has made us all more adventurous, giving Eastern European grub like goulash, Polish pierogi (stuffed dumplings) and Jewish fare (chopped liver, pastrami toasties and matzoh ball soup) a chance to shine.
Expect to see them all....

but often with a bit of a modern twist. 
Also, spam. Posh, deep fried as 'spam fries' or scattered on a bed of rice with seaweed like a sort of, well, spam sushi. Spamshi. We're not even kidding.
Indulge in some proper comfort food with this M&S Gastropub Navarin of Lamb, £8 for 530g
Thought this had gone away?

 Well think again, because posh 'Spam fries' are coming to a menu near you
14. Seaweed
Mint choc chip and raspberry ripple are out, the new savoury ice cream flavours are what it's all about
It's official: seaweed is the new kale.

Whether it's wrapping up sushi, dressed with sesame in a Korean restaurant or dried and sprinkled on crisps as flavouring, we all want it. It's environmentally friendly, umami-rich and packed with fibre, antioxidants and 'good fats', and there's LOADS of it just hanging out in the sea.
Consumers are munching it as strips (sometimes bacon flavoured) or eating it as a powder dusted on snacks.

Popcorn company 479º do a mean seaweed and sesame variety. Just saying.
15. Savoury ice cream
When it comes to ice cream, it's bad news for those of you with a sweet tooth.

Mint choc chip and raspberry ripple are out, olive oil, Parmesan, Sichuan peppercorn, pine nut, goat's cheese, bread, Twiglets, Stilton, pretzels, soy sauce and even squid ink are in. (Though, blessedly, not all at the same time.)
Olive oil makes ice cream beautifully creamy and rich, weareliferuiner.com and gives it a 'healthier', more nutrient-rich edge.

Italians have been using it in their gelato for years, and now, ice cream parlours in the States (including Otto's Pizzeria and Morgenstern's in New York City and Lick in Texas) are getting in on the trick, offering flavours including goat cheese, thyme and honey and roasted beets and fresh mint.