The Week In Food #1: From food trends to the best meal for space travel

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Jan 08, 2024

Welcome to The Week In Food

This is The Week In Food, a written accompaniment to the Ken On Food podcast and a weekly series that brings you five food stories served up in five minutes or less – ideal if you’re looking for something to go with your morning coffee, afternoon tea or just taking five minutes out for yourself.

It’s Sunday January 7^th 2024 and this is the first edition of the year, so happy new year! While you’re reading this on Substack, you can also listen to the audio edition. Not only that, but you can find Food In 5 Minutes on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or wherever you do your podcast listening when you search for Ken On Food.

If you’re reading this online and you’ve not yet subscribed for free, what are you waiting for?

And if you’re only reading this but haven’t taken a look at the blog recently, stop by kenonfood.com, you might find something you like, especially if it’s got to do with the Kilkenny food scene. Let’s see what I’ve got for you this week…

Food In 5 Minutes for Sunday 7 January 2024

1. Should restaurant portion sizes be cut back?

a pizza sitting on top of a wooden cutting board — Photo by Farhad Ibrahimzade on Unsplash

The first story for you this week comes from Irish food circles where all food outlets are now being encouraged to cut down on portion sizes as a means of helping to reduce food waste nationwide.

This follows a piece in the Irish Examiner this week looking at Ireland’s food waste with the latest data from the Environmental Protection Agency showing Ireland generated over 770-thousand tonnes of food waste in 2020 – 31% of that from homes with 23% from food service.

Donegal TD, Minister Charlie McConologue is quoted as saying it’s much better not to overload somebody’s plate but instead allow people to come back for seconds, believing it’s less of a problem if people weren’t given enough food at a restaurant where they could ask for seconds instead, and pay for it.

Check out the full interview here via the Irish Examiner.

2. More restaurants and cafés in Ireland facing closure

bokeh photography of closed signage — Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Sticking with food in Ireland and the Restaurant Association of Ireland was warning this week of more closures of cafes and restaurants in the coming months as costs continue to rise.

It’s estimated that nearly 200 food-led businesses have shut their doors since last July – over 40 in November gone alone.

It’s not just big city eateries that have been experiencing struggles with running costs, the rise in the VAT rate to 13%, rent, rates, and wages as more local, small, regional and rural towns are the ones at risk according to CEO Adrian Cummins with support for small businesses set to become an election issue this year if steps aren’t taken.

While the issues were raised on national radio during the week, the following provide some reading material for you

3. Food trends for 2024

brown and white dish on black ceramic bowl — Photo by micheile henderson on Unsplash

As it’s the new year, the top food trends of 2024 are worth a look at this week as well where on the international stage, ABC’s Kelly McCarthy offers up her list including

More plants in plant-based foods with brands and developers opting for a more purist approach including a shift away from complex meat alternatives to real, whole vegetables and protein-forward products
It’s also the year that could see buckwheat (pancakes above) finally make the breakthrough it’s been waiting for all this time
2024 should also be a much bigger year for driving sustainability, implementing changes in energy consumption, packaging, delivery

Here’s some more for good measure.

As a sidebar to this and circling back to the Irish food scene, Aniar’s JP McMahon also writes in the Examiner this week, sharing his own culinary predictions for 2024, some of which he’ll be implementing in February when Aniar returns from its winter break complete with a new kitchen and a fresh 10-year lease on the restaurant.

4. Look who’s top of the five-a-day heap

red and green bell pepper and red apple on white plate — Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

Food Navigator is looking at Health At A Glance, the 2023 report from the OECD, and it’s revealed that the UK and Ireland consume the most fruit and vegetables out of the 30 countries assessed.

In the report, originally published in November, you’ll see that 33% of adults in the UK and Ireland consume at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, compared with 30% in the Netherlands, 20% in France, 11% in Germany and just 2% in Romania.

Ireland sees 75% of the population consume at least one portion daily with South Korea topping the single portion stakes with 99% of the population getting their minimum fruit and vegetable fix.

5. The perfect meal for heading into space?

gray spacecraft taking off during daytime — Photo by SpaceX on Unsplash

I’ll finish on a quirky one this week courtesy of space.com where Samantha Mathewson writes that Mars-bound astronauts will now enjoy the perfect space meal thanks to new research on nutritional, sustainable and tasty options for long-duration missions.

Per the article, “Researchers studied male astronauts' specialized nutritional needs to develop more appealing, nutrient-dense options. It turns out the optimal space meal is a tasty vegetarian salad, leveraging ingredients that can be grown in space and that offer micronutrients needed to compensate for the extra calories burned, according to a statement from the American Chemical Society.”

Their suggested vegetarian salad includes soybeans, poppy seeds, barley, kale, peanuts, sweet potato and sunflower seeds, which was found to be the optimal meal for men on long-term space missions, according to the study. Read all about it here.

Also this week…

It’s been a busy one on the blog as the new year as the creative juices get flowing for the first week of 2024. If you missed any of them, here are some handy links to get you up to speed.

Something else for your ears

I’ll leave you on this one. While I’m sure you’d love to pick up a free audio subscription to the Ken On Food podcast, it’s not the only one on the go. With a wealth of food podcasts to choose from these days, I’ve been spending some time listening to The Food Chain from BBC World Service, in particular, this episode about eating your way to 100.

Give it a listen here.

Get in touch

If you’ve got a story to share, reach out. You can email me at any time to ken@kenonfood.com. You can also find me on X, Instagram and TikTok. Get new episodes of Food In 5 Minutes, along with this email subscription, every Sunday morning.