Future of Food

I started off with three main food trends that I have been looking at: food porn, food as a chore and health food. With this start, my classmate Zac Mau and I brainstormed ideas on what would happen in the future, if all these microfutures became a norm. Some things we came up with”

• Future: restaurants with IV drips ? injectable food, soylent style. Or do people go to hospitals/restaurants to order their ‘serving’/prescription of food for the week?
• People taking these IV drips at night, so they don’t have to waste time during the day eating? → “anti-hunger” pills come with the IV drips?
• Or do people take these IV drips at work, so it is normal to have an IV drip stand next to your office desk?
• BUT…people really enjoy tasting food and the experience of eating….Do these IV drips allow you to experience the flavour of the food too? Do they come with “texture bars” ? So it feels exactly like how you would eat it normally? (this form of food makes it easier to carry around, does not need cooking/heating up, is not messy to eat, faster to eat while doing work)
• For people who love taking photos of food: do they start forming powdered food back into food-like shapes for the aesthetic?
• Raw food activists protest against this new trend?
• Machines that converts your favourite foods into powder — so you can pre-buy/pre-make meals, and put it through this vending machine-like contraption, and it will spit out a ‘bar’ version of your food? (same reasons as having IV drip + texture bars)
• Or is it like in Charlie and the Chocolate factory, where there is gum that when you chew it, you can experience the flavour and textures of your favourite meal?
• People become obsessed with curating a “perfect image” of themselves: through social media, show how great of a life they have eating all these foods, but in reality, they use a stomach tap to get rid of all of the “real food” they ate, and instead, take “non-fat” IV drips?
• In restaurants, the menu will be split to normal food, “aesthetic” food (you can pay more for the chefs to make your food look extra aesthetically pleasing), and IV drip bags of each of the dishes they serve can also be ordered?

We also started exploring the consequences this future would have on the social aspect of society, health and economies/infrastructures (blue post its).

While talking through this problem, I realized that this is a far-fetched future, and I needed to figure out what the reason behind why we, food-lovers, decided to stop enjoying the taste of real food completely.

My thought process after completing the futures wheel diagram:

• MOKBANG: It becomes an actual JOB. people train for it. Audition for positions. Schools have classes to train for this job…vocational school? How to eat deliciously etc. Restaurants hire these ‘celebrities’ to become their spokesperson. You can go into a restaurant and the other side is a mokbang star (screen). Also classes just for food photography and how to be a lifestyle ‘trainer’.
• ‘Managers’ for these eating celebrities.psychologists (like how athletes have psychologists)
• Chefs are trained to make food retain heat for longer. Make food just for the purpose of getting the best photo.
• Restaurant infrastructures are built to accommodate this trend. More private booths? Can pick tables according to composition available. ‘Themes’. summer/spring/fall/winter colour schemed tables + lighting + props. Garnish as props.

Ideas of how to present this future:

• Day in a life of the food celebrity (behind the scenes). Shows his/her full day, what they do. They give tours of their old university, job office etc. Takes host to a restaurant where they are endorsed by.
• What’s in their bag? What’s in their fridge? What’s their favourite food?

• Magazine article? “Get into the life of xxxx” shows their lifestyle, chef best friend, tips to take a good photo, how to eat deliciously,
• “Scandals” spread. Celebrity xxx caught emptying their stomach into xxx restaurant!! :O Is this not the ideal job? Have they been falsely advertising to our hopeful youth?