The truth behind the food trends for 2014

Forbes released the “12 hottest food trends for 2014“:
1. Local food
2. Vegetarian
3. Healthy kids meals
4. Gluten free
5. Liquid nitrogen ice cream
6. Nuts
7. Artisan pizza
8. Buffalo wings
9. Upscale comfort food
10. Mashup food (cronut, dessert pizza)
11. Umami
12. Bisquits

But just how popular are these foods? Which are REALLY trending? Let’s let Google gives us the insights into what people have been searching in the past ten years.

1. Local food: not trending
Local food hit its peak in 2009. Since then it’s plateaued.

2. Vegetarian: not trending
Not only is searches for vegetarian not trending, they actually have dropped down from 2004 to 2007. Vegetarian searches are soooo 2004.

However, take a look at Vegetarian recipes. They peaked up in 2009. It goes to show that sometimes a search for single word doesn’t really show the results you want. Most people since 2004 know what “vegetarian” is, so why search for that one word. But when you add “recipes” onto the word, it shows that people are interested in actually being vegetarian. However vegetarian recipes have have slowly declined since then.

3. Health kids meals: not trending
It was moving up in 2009. But not in 2013.

4. Gluten-free: TOTALLY trending

5. Liquid nitrogen ice cream: what?
This one is too obscure to really say. It kinda peaked up a bit in 2013, but it still kinda obtuse.

6. Nuts: kinda trending, kinda not
Searches for “nuts recipes” are down, but searches for “best nuts” are up. Did people get sick of trying to make recipes with nuts? Now they just want to know what are the best nuts?

7. Gourmet pizza: fresh trend
The hockey puck trend upward for gourmet pizza in 2014 shows a recent trend. Will it stay? Look at artisan pizza in 2011. It did not stay.

8. Buffalo wings: trend
This is a nice solid trend gaining steam since 2005.

9. Upscale comfort food: undetermined
Google trends had zero data for “upscale comfort food,” but regular ol’ “comfort food” is doing quite well.

10. Mashup foods: cronut for 2013, what will be for 2014?
The cronut when crazy in 2013, but has since dipped back down. Dessert pizza has shown a slow incline, despite it’s low volume of searches. Since this category is “mashup food,” what will be the mashup food for 2014?

11. Umami: definite trend
It’s been on the increase since 2008 and has been steadily increasing every year. When will umami stop?

12. Biscuits
Biscuits have been popular since 2010 and are increasing every year. Long live the biscuit!

Wow. That’s a lot of charts. Wouldn’t it be nice to combine them all into one graph? Tomorrow we’ll take a look at all 12 trends in one bar chart.