What our fantasies about futuristic food say about us | Psyche Ideas

What foods we will enjoy in the future depends on who 'we' are.

• The 'future delicious' call to mind readymade solutions that eliminate the need for cooks and meals.
• This includes Soylent, the synthesised baby formula-like smoothies, or the food substitutes slugged by software engineers coding at their desks. It includes power bars and Red Bulls to provide energy and sustenance without the fuss of a dinner table.
• Meal kits allow buyers to mix a few things that arrive pre-packaged, sorted and portioned and Impossible Burgers, a product that mimics the experience of eating red meat.

The future delicious tends to value the technological component of its manufacture over the actual food substrate.

For example, Oreos is one of the most man-made foods in existence. It is factory-produced from highly processed, shelf-stabilised flour, stripped of its nutrients, then re-enriched by others, enhanced by genetically modified soy lecithin, and fortified with sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. Oreos have also been found to contain trace amounts of glyphosate, a weedkiller.

How we decide if this cookie is delicious is mostly based on nostalgia.