Food fight! Clean eating versus the pornburger: What the hot new trends say about our relationship to food

Without a doubt the trend of the year – and it’s not showing any sign of stopping – is clean eating. Eating has gone virtuous, and there’s no end to the online virtue-signalling from bloggers who have cleaned up their food act and gone for a diet stripped of processed foods. Search #cleaneating on Instagram and 24,621,020 posts come up, many of them featuring men and women with six-packs. Among its celebrity advocates are Gwyneth Paltrow and Miranda Kerr. Meanwhile its rise has seen the emergence of a string of clean-eating social media stars, including “Deliciously” Ella Woodward and the Hemsley sisters. It’s the food fad of our time and people are going a bundle for it partly because it’s relatively flexible, summed up, perhaps best by the Hemsley sisters who say: “Eating unprocessed and nourishing food allows you to live a happier, healthier and more energised life. By preparing your own meals you can be in control of what’s going into your body and feel better for it.”

Anti-clean eating

Clean-eating might not have been on the scene that long, but a dirty backlash has begun. Among those on the "dark" side is Bella Younger, who, “tired of being made to feel guilty and inferior by everyone’s perfect lives on Instagram", devised Deliciously Stella, an Edinburgh Fringe show parodying these virtue-food bloggers. Younger started posting satirical photographs, skipping the Nutribullet beloved of clean eaters and posing instead with a deep-fat fryer. “It’s arrived,” she declares. “Can't wait to use my new deep-fat fryer. Truly the most amazing kitchen gadget. You can make everything from chips to Mars bars. Have a gluttonous day everyone."

Weird burgers

It’s a sign that a trend has gone over its peak when it goes strange. The whole American burger bar fad has now peaked and tipped over into weird with the arrival of the trend for outlandish over-the-top pornburgers and quirky variations like the sushi burger (an Instagram fad for sandwiches made out of rice baps). The avocado burger bun (created by Amsterdam-based food stylist Colette Dyke) even makes an appearance. It’s not enough anymore to have an ordinary burger. Since the publication of Pornburger: Hot Buns and Juicy Beefcakes, a book by Matthew Ramsey that declares it “takes the foodporn movement to its unabashed pinnacle” they have to be piled high with dripping fillings, and decadent layers. Would you really want to eat a whole one? Probably not. But they look great on Instagram.

Newish Jewish

Whatever’s big in the United States ultimately arrives here, and Baum + Whiteman, one of the the world’s top restaurant consultants earlier this year predicted that one of the big trends set to hit was “a resurgence of Jewish food”. It’s the foods and flavours of the past with modern culinary approaches and presentation – eccentric bagels, strange hummus mash-ups, kosher ramen soup – or as they put it, “grandchildren and great-grandchildren reinventing dishes and foodways that second-generation immigrants turned their backs on … except at holidays.” Already you can find it in the Modern Israeli cuisine at London’s Palomar restaurant, and The Palomar Cookbook, published last month.

Dampfnudel

Until last Wednesday the vast majority of the British public were unaware of the German treat that is the Dampfnudel. But it’s appearance in the Great British Bake Off challenge, sent the nation into hyperdrive searching for information about these delicious doughy dumplings with their caramelised bottoms. Within hours #Dampfnudel was trending on twitter and an old German Dampfnudel song had gone viral. So catchy, you won't be able to get it out of your noodle.

Mheat

Or rather vegan meat, handmade from scratch by vegan butchers Italian expats Alberto Casotto and Hilary Masin, based in Paisley. The craze for Mheat is partly symptomatic of the rapid rise in the number of vegans, by over 350 per cent in the last decade. Most of this shift is driven by the young, Millennials and teenagers – so expect to see the trend keep on going.

Ultra-flexitarian eating

If you can’t cope with veganism, there’s always flexitarian – the part-time veggie who likes a bit of meat now and again – or even “ultra flexitarian”. In its early days flexitarianism was inspired by the Meat Free Mondays created by Paul McCartney and family. But, according to the Great British Chefs website, more and more of us are now going ultra-flexi, and hopping around from one eating style to another, as we create a portfolio of diets. As the Great British Chefs website describes: “How about Meat-free Mondays, followed by Tee-total Tuesdays and Thursdays, Higher Welfare Wednesdays and perhaps Fish-only Fridays before Sugar-free Saturdays and Sod-the-diet Sundays.”

Meanwhile, Pam Gilmour, the Glasgow Food Geek blogger has noted a swerve towards healthy food in Glasgow eateries, where she sees “more vegan and vegetarian food”. As she puts it: “People now want to take a bit of responsibility for how our food is produced and sourced and that is seeing some people perhaps turning away from meat. This has lead to a rise in chefs producing some fantastically inventive menus for people who choose to exclude meat and animal products from their lifestyle.”

The no avocado diet

Put down the avocado toast. Drop the guacamole. Our global appetite for avocados, the superfood fad of recent years, has got so huge it has become a problem. As the Sunday Herald’s restaurant critic, Joanna Blythman brought to the world’s attention, our appetite for these has resulted in warnings from Mexico that consumption of this fruit is “indirectly fuelling illegal deforestation and environmental degradation”. Back to the good old-fashioned poached egg?

The greener coffee cup

We throw away an astonishing 2.5 billion cups in a year, and, as, Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall showed us most of them are not easily recyclable. Hence the #wastenot campaign in which Whittingstall urged the public to write to their local coffee shops saying "Wake up and smell the waste - we want cups that can actually be recycled NOW". Expect to see new more genuinely recyclable cups, but also the rise in customers bringing into coffee shops their own reusable ones.

Freakshakes

Neither a milkshake nor a dessert, but both thrown together to create some overblown construction based around a glass jar, the freakshake looks like some mutant sugar-fat monster trying to escape its glass confines. Invented in Australia, and destined to wow on Instagram, like some alien invasion, these shakes have started to take over cafes, restaurants and ice cream bars across the UK, as cooks have vied to throw together the most extraordinary combinations. One Yorkshire restaurant even went savoury, throwing in some pulled pork and cheese. The opposite of clean-eating, this is consumption at its most decadent and dirtiest. One restaurant critic Marina O’Loughlin described them as “revolting, diabetes in a glass, food for the sad and the selfie-obsessed”.

Salad cake

Looks almost as decadent as a freakshake, but is as clean and guilt-free as a kale smoothie. The brainchild of Japanese food stylist, Misuki Moriyasu, these gateaux are made from blending whole vegetables with soybean flour. Sugar-free and gluten-free, they are constructions of virtuous beauty,

Golden milk

It may be yet to fully hit the cafes of Scotland, but in the very hippest joints across the world, the new cuppa of choice is “golden milk”, otherwise known as the turmeric latte: a drink concocted by adding cold-pressed turmeric juice to coconut or almond milk. The health benefits of turmeric are endless. It’s a hangover cure in Japan, an anti-inflammatory, a pain-reducer. Google charts trends by following search habits and found, earlier this year that turmeric searches were rising especially swiftly. Edinburgh-based food blogger Rebecca Goodman recommends them for for a little late night soother”. Oh and Gwyneth Paltrow loves them.

Pizza

Burgers are over. The next big food is pizza. This is what Pam Gilmour, writer of the Glasgow Food Geek blog, says, noting that it's set to be the “new comfort food craze”. It’s also what’s predicted to take off in the UK because of what’s happened in the United States, where America’s fastest-growing pizza chain, MOD Pizza, has been experiencing phenomenal growth. What the chain delivers is something that has become known as “fast casual pizza” – casual dining where customers construct their own pizza choosing their own toppings before having it cooked quickly in three minutes. Already this kind of restaurant has arrived in Dundee, in the form of Project Pie, but other branches of similar chains are set to open across the UK. Pizza, whether fast or slow, is set to trend, and in Glasgow. As Gilmour puts it: “We already have a few great pizza place in the city like Paesano, Firebird and newly opened Baffo pizza, and with more planning to open in the coming months, it’s looking like great artisan pizza is going to be the next big thing for Glasgow.''

Fantasy food

It looks incredible, but would you actually want to eat it? The rainbow-coloured toasties, galaxy-design blue and purple donuts, the over-the-top pornburgers and the giant slopping-over freakshakes make for great photos but too often that’s really what they’re made for. The trend for food that looks divine, but whose taste is an irrelevance, has been fuelled by the craze for food photos on Instagram and other social media. A scientific study has even suggested that food porn itself is responsible for making us fatter. Bring on the #uglyfoodporn and #realfood.

Fika

We have no word for it in English, but fika, the Swedish practice of getting together for a little coffee and a chit-chat, plus possibly some nice treat, is set to be all the rage with the arrival of a slew of books on the Scandi way of living. Fika is being promoted alongside hygge, a Danish concept described by journalist Helen Russell, author of The Year of Living Danishly, as having a “relaxed, cosy time with friends and family, often with coffee, cake or beer, can be good for the soul." It's all about, in other words, "indulging, having a nice time, not punishing or denying yourself anything”.

Rye

Low in gluten and less likely to make you bloat than plain ordinary wheat, rye is the latest fashionable grain, and the must-have toast of the trendy bruncher. Nigella Lawson and Davina McCall are raving about it. It’s also thorough Nordic. Just serve it with your pickled herrings or a slice of smoked salmon.

Savoury ice cream

Fig and goats cheese, fresh mint, avocado, chilli and lime sorbet, sweetcorn and cracked pepper. These are just a few of the flavours you can get down at Mary’s Milk Bar in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket – as well as a wide range of the more conventional sweet options too. The shop is riding the crest of a trend towards savoury ice cream that has even brought these eccentric flavours into our supermarkets: for instance Heston Blumenthal’s mustard icecream for Waitrose.

Venison

Such is the scale of the venison rush that last month it was declared that Scotland needed more venison farmers to keep up with the soaring demand. Sainsbury’s doubled its line for 2016. Andy Waugh of Scottish restaurant Mac and Wild has been delivering wild deer burgers and venison tartare to the trendies of London. And, no wonder it’s so popular. After all, it’s healthy – packed with iron and B vitamins – and higher in protein and lower in fat than many other meats.

Vegetables as carbs

The spiralizer is still king. Cauliflower rice is still the ultimate carb substitute. The trend towards getting your veggies to work in the place of your tatties, rice and pasta continues unrelentingly and is only going to get bigger.

Root-to-stem dining

First we had “nose to tail”, in which every big of the animal, from the pigs ear to the ox’s tail got a platform in haute cuisine. Now it’s every little scrap of the vegetable from onion tops to broccoli stems. As the Great British Chefs website has described: " Following a crackdown on culinary waste, using every part of the plant and making it the hero of the dish seems to be the way forward.”

Midget Trees

Move over Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver, the big name in cookery books is blogging sensation Joe Wicks whose books have taken the UK cookery charts by storm, hitting the number one spot, over the last year. And one of the products that Wicks has who has done more than anyone else to promote is Tenderstem broccoli – or “midget trees” as he likes to call it. Wicks has been credited with helping a 25 per cent growth in sales of the vegetable. As Wicks would say, bosh!