• Issues:
• #21
• #20
• #19
• #18
• #17
• #16
• #15
• #14
• #13
• #12
• #11
• #10
• #9

Food: from plough to plate, we look at the way food has become the new fashion to be seen out and about in.

Food has been a lifestyle issue since the early 90s, but the boom in trendy restaurants, celebrity chefs, cookery books, kitchen ranges and pink Smeg fridges is giving way to a more enlightened approach as food becomes increasingly linked to science, health, technology, medicine and connoisseurship.

All this is going to open up new possibilities in branding, marketing and retail. We will see new marriages between pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food companies as all strive to turn food not just into a pleasure, but a delivery vehicle for glowing skin, a longer life and a sharper brain. Not just content with hotels and crockery, the likes of Versace and Armani will involve themselves with making pasta and bottling wines. Extreme Connoisseurs will search out new ingredients, recipes and geographic sourcing.

Of course, there are two sides to every story. When are we going to start questioning the real value of all the sterols, probiotics and prebiotics (whatever they are) in the functional foods that are filling supermarket shelves? Could eating become as contentious an issue as global warming? Judge for yourselves in issue #19, dedicated to The Future of Foods.