Today, the airwaves are filled with advertisements for consumer foods that aren’t simply nourishing but portrayed as practically medicine. A slew of softdrinks are marketed as hangover cures, energy, memory enhancers, cognitive enhancers, help with clairvoyance, and fuel for flight. Fish isn’t just fish, it’s OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS. And somewhere along the way, trans-fats replaced “Ebola virus” as the world’s deadliest substance. Is this random or could you see it coming?

Food as medicine was a theme we predicted for 2010 way back in 1999 when studying the future of food and health for a group of global consumer product manufacturers. The world seemed to be at a turning point at that moment, with a number of trends appearing to collide in the decade to come:

• Super-size and family value packs had reached their apex, due to increasing penetration of fast food and big-box retail throughout the world
• Obesity epidemic reaching a pitch, not only in America but also in unexpected places like France, Greece, China
• Litigious American culture had finally apexed with its war on cigarette liability, and a new target was likely to be next
• Biotechnology was promising new technological abilities for all plant life (this was the era of the Human Genome Project and techno-positive rhetoric was off the chart)
• Boomers were aging, and increasingly interested in immortality on the cheap
• Sustainability was increasing as a concern, and farming would be one of the most effected industries
• The “Slow Food Movement” was beginning to point back to heirloom breeds of livestock and produce and encourage local diversity in favor of industrial solutions

Read more ...