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Home / Lifestyle

A taste of things to come

By Nicola Shepheard
Herald on Sunday·
31 Jan, 2009 03:00 PM6 mins to read

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KEY POINTS:

Madonna is strictly macrobiotic, with a penchant for traditional Japanese food. Rihanna likes her fish steamed and rice boiled, but scoffs hot wings in her dressing room; one of the Eagles eats only canned food on tour.

One Auckland chef, who has cooked on their tours, says he
would stand side-by-side in the kitchen with Madonna's personal chef, astonished at her very specific demands.

"Her macrobiotic food was all linked to the lunar and planetary cycles," the Kiwi chef says.

Stars have long had their gastronomical whims and neuroses catered for.

Now, we can all be legends in our own lunchtimes - and other mealtimes.

Increasingly, we will be able to personalise food to our taste, convictions, self-image, health goals, and eventually to our genetic make-up.

This year and beyond, the catch-cry "I am what I eat" will have an addendum: "I eat what I am/believe/want to be".

By 2020, we may be able to tailor our food to match our genes. New Zealand scientists are at the leading edge of a new field called nutrigenomics, which seeks to unravel the mysteries of how food interacts with genes.

It's already known that food compounds have different health effects on different people. What's good for me may not be so good for you.

A Singaporean study suggests while polyunsaturated fatty acids probably protect against cardiovascular disease in most of us, a small group of people have the genetic make-up that would benefit from less, not more, of the fat.

Nutrigenomics NZ programme leader Professor Lynn Ferguson envisages it working like this: you pay for a genetic test that will flag any predispositions to diseases or digestive problems (primitive tests are already available over the internet); you receive a list of foods you should eat and avoid for your particular profile of risks and sensitivities, perhaps with a pointer towards certain food ranges.

"It's a train heading in our direction," says Ferguson. "We've got to be prepared for this."

Already, so-called superfoods are sidling on to our supermarket shelves with seductive health claims: cholesterol-lowering margarine, vitamin-infused water for focus, energy or a calcium top-up.

Superfoods, known more prosaically as functional foods, include foods with proven natural benefits (such as salmon, for its heart-friendly omega-3), and foods "fortified" with natural additives they don't naturally contain, giving certain extra health or performance benefits. They are part of a "food-as-medicine" trend appalling foodies but appealing to increasingly health-conscious consumers.

Japanese businessmen are gobbling GABA-enriched chocolate to sharpen their game (packet strap line: "Mental Balance Chocolate. For your struggle in a stressful society.")

Dieting Canadians are downing Viscofibre, which makes them feel full by forming a soft, expanding gel in the stomach and slowing the uptake of sugar into the bloodstream.

Here, strict regulations around health claims is slowing the superfood tsunami, but New Zealand scientists are working with food producers to put more on our shelves.

Healthfood company Comvita is working hard with Plant and Food scientists to produce food that will help protect against diseases such as gastritis, ulcers and gastric cancer in people infected with the common bacteria Helicobacter pylori.

Karl Crawford from Plant and Food says New Zealand is perfectly poised to scientifically prove and market the wellbeing-enhancing powers of our unique produce, such as golden kiwifruit and Manuka honey.

"One particularly out-there line of research is looking at the effects of plant-based foods on mental performance - foods that make you calmer, reduce perceived fatigue, help you concentrate better," he says.

After years of generic, convenience-driven, one-size-fits-all McNosh, producers are catering more and more to difference.

See it in the explosion of "niche" lines: gluten-free, low Glycaemic Index, organic, or lactose-free ranges.

Overseas, you can even go online and put together foods with the exact ingredient mix you want. Customised muesli and icecream, anyone?

THIS YEAR, the choosey conscience eater will also be the cash-strapped eater.

Food watchers say our new recession frugality is dovetailing with the slow-food, home-gardening and local produce trends to change the way we eat.

Comfort food is back, but with a modern twist. Chefs are making "deconstructed" cheesecake and prawn cocktails.

Tina Duncan of South Island catering firm White Tie Catering made toasted cheese and onion rolls for a Christmas party and they went like wildfire. "Restaurants are reinventing the old classics but simplifying them."

"We're over the whole intimidating menu thing, in which you can't ask what things are because it makes you feel stupid," she says.

Upmarket restaurant the Euro Bar on Auckland's Viaduct is doing bacon and eggs for $38 and iceberg lettuce and blue cheese salad for $7.

Iceberg lettuce?

Didn't that disappear in the early 1980s to be forever replaced with rocket, mesclun and romaine?

Says head chef Simon Gault, it's about good, hearty food made from top-quality, locally sourced ingredients and given a twist.

And this is the twist in the tale.

Restaurateurs have recognised that what we really want - and some will pay big money for - is a return to the comfort food we grew up with.

Meat pies. Omelettes. Macaroni cheese and mince.

So too, high-tech customised packaged food marketers are really just catering to our desire for foods that look, smell and taste just the way we want, today.

Food that fills our stomachs and sets us up for the day ahead.

It may come in a vacuum-sealed package. It may carry colourful branding. It may also have the price tag of beluga caviar.

But all it does, really, is what our grandmother once did.

She chose her ingredients from the butcher's and greengrocer's. Then she cooked it to suit her family's tastes and needs.

Auckland University of Technology senior chef lecturer Alan Brown predicts the rise of neighbourhood restaurants selling simple, good-quality meals for under $30.

A home-cooking and gardening revival is under way, fuelled by food TV, magazines, websites and, of course, necessity.

Food writer Lauraine Jacobs predicts homemade soups will be big this winter, cheap cuts such as offal will make a comeback and farmers' markets will weather the recession.

We'll economise on the basics - both major supermarket chains report home brand sales are up - but still invest in quality.

We'll buy slow cookers, swap recipes and boast about our heirloom purple carrots and black-skinned tomatoes like we used to boast about property values.

Fresh produce spending was up 19 per cent year-on-year in November, the biggest jump of all food categories, according to latest Statistics New Zealand figures.

John Corbett, editor of food industry magazine FMCG, welcomes the shift. "The recession is forcing us to get real about food and slow down," he says.

"There's this whole, unstoppable change going on."

Behind the futuristic science and slick food marketing, personalisation trends link into our back-to-basics seachange: we want to grow, make and buy exactly what we want to eat, in the same way our grandparents did - but delivered to us on a plate.

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