We Predict What's on Your Plate in 2010

At the farmers' market.
Our experts agreed: Expect shopping at farmers' markets and seasonal cooking in general to continue to be strong trends in 2010 for everyone from the novice cook to the celeb chef.

In Your Kitchen.
Our experts say we'll embrace simplicity in the kitchen this year. The cooking at home trend continues...and why not? "Even if the economy takes off again (fingers crossed!), I think/hope that some of the lessons learned during this Great Recession will stick. Cooking at home is more cost effective and better for you," said Yelena Gitlin Nesbit. That's good news for her cookbook sales. And, don't go looking for the newest kitchen gadgets either. "I see the trend for 2010 to be about finding uses for unused tools and giving outdated, energy-guzzling, or potentially unsafe kitchen tools a 'greenover,' such as replacing old nonstick skillets with PFOA-free skillets," said Jackie Newgent. At TDG we expect to see the cast iron skillet and the Dutch oven making a reappearance.

At Restaurants.
Although people will continue cooking at home there will still be plenty of restaurant trends to watch. The National Restaurant Association in their annual Chef Survey predicts: sustainability; locally grown and produced meats, seafood, produce, wine and beer; smaller portions (with smaller prices); gluten-free and food allergy conscious food; and farm/estate-branded ingredients as the hottest trends to expect in restaurants in 2010. These sound like trends worth getting out of the kitchen and into our local eatery for.

On your (cook)bookshelf.
In a less than stellar year for publishing and for the economy in general, cookbook sales were very good. Should we expect this trend to continue? Yelena Gitlin Nesbit says "Yes!" She also predicts growth in food narratives but a decline in calling cookbooks "green." "I think people are going to start looking for more of an explanation as to why a particular cookbook is green, as opposed to just having the word 'green' in there. Publishers are going to need to keep coming up with catchy but informative subtitles, I guess!" In other good publishing news, Edible Magazines will debut their first book and expects to continue with their annual average growth of 12 new magazines for the sixth year in a row.

At the grocery store.
We've been hearing about lots of proposed legislation on everything from food labels to food safety standards. But what can we actually expect to see in our grocery stores in 2010? Although Marion Nestle doesn't believe we'll get the food safety overhaul we desperately need, she says the FDA is moving to try "to clean up front-of-package labels, revise the Nutrition Facts label, and maybe fix the business with serving sizes. These too will be useful steps." She's also "keeping fingers crossed for quieter food labels and fewer ridiculous health claims."

On TV.
"Companies are under great pressure to back off from aggressive pushing of junk foods on kids," said Marion Nestle. "Four federal agencies got together to set standards for foods that are allowed to be marketed to kids," she added. We'll see the effects of these standards in 2010 -- although Nestle believes these standards are too lenient. Also expect ads on TV and other media that are "reformulating products to qualify for health claims."