This week they (I think re-ran) a program about changes in food culture in America.
The most relevant segment to this board was probably this one:
The Future of Food Shopping
Three Takeaways:
Some people still love to cook; ten percent of Americans, according to Yoon's research. But the majority don’t love it, and frankly, don’t have a lot of time to do it. As a result, Yoon says that cooking, like sewing, has - and will, increasingly - morph from a necessary skill into a hobby. This is down from 15% of Americans in an earlier study (year that research was conducted in either case is not cited)
You’d think the Food Network would inspire viewers to try new foods and recipes. But Yoon says he was surprised to discover this wasn’t the case. Cooking shows have raised the bar for viewers, turning actual cooking (beyond, say, boxed mac n’ cheese) into something that might seem too challenging for the average home chef.
Yoon says that right now, the food industry is in a technology vacuum, and in order to survive, industry leaders need to harken back to their innovative roots. One food technology he hopes to see popping up in grocery stores? Shelf-stable foods, created through a process called microwave assisted thermal sterilization, or MATS.