Previewing Foods of Tomorrow : Future: The food industry predicts that ready-to-eat will be normal and that Asians and Latinos will introduce new foods.

June and Ward Cleaver don’t live here anymore, but neither do the Jetsons.

All the Buck Rogers soothsayers who predicted we’d be popping pills instead of eating real food at the turn of the 21st Century can now start munching on their words.

What we eat tomorrow will still look a lot like the stuff we eat today. The difference will come in the way food technologists engineer the foods so they are healthier for us, last longer, taste better and get to the table faster.

The stay-at-home trends the futurists call nesting or cocooning are expected to continue as the baby boom generation enters middle age, but eating at home doesn’t mean Mom or Dad will be baking bread and making homemade soup.

They may be staying home more at night, but in more and more households both parents are working during the day--a major factor that will influence what we eat. From 1975 to 1988, the percentage number of working women with children younger than 18 grew from 47.4% to 65%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And even more moms are expected in the workplace during the next decade.

“The working mother is beginning to promote the idea of the family getting together for a sit-down meal,” says Bob Messenger of Palatine, Ill., editor and publisher of the Food Trends Newsletter.

“But here is the big difference--they are not going to eat meals prepared from scratch. They will be meals prepared in advance or take-home meals. Food companies are going to be pressured to produce more upscale frozen or shelf-stable dinners, and supermarkets will try to respond with fresh, ready-to-eat dinners.”

Another important influence will be smaller households with more money to spend. The Newspaper Advertising Bureau says that one- and two-person households, now accounting for 45% of all discretionary income, will account for 60% by the turn of the century.

Many of the forces we have seen in the 1980s will continue to grow in the ‘90s. Martin J. Friedman, editor of New Product News, says he sees the future in six “f” words-- fat, fiber, foreign, fancy, fast and fresh.

“Most food trends are an evolution rather than a revolution,” he says. “We are not going to switch in 10 years to eating pills instead of food. But we do have a general decline in the taste standards. Young people’s ideas of great fried chicken is not what grandma used to make; it’s Kentucky Fried Chicken.”

What will happen to food in the 1990s? The following predictions were compiled from interviews with 20 trend-spotters, trade magazine journalists, food industry representatives and researchers.

Prediction: Americans will continue to believe that they are what they eat, reinforcing the notion that nutrition sells.

A recent report on grocery marketing in Advertising Age pointed out that the link between diet and health is the most significant of the new rules facing the $354-billion grocery business for the ‘90s.

“While the products that set the style of the ‘80s fluctuated wildly between consumers’ desire to eat light--for example, Lean Cuisine, Diet Coke, Nutrasweet--and their enthusiastic self-indulgence--perhaps best represented by the DoveBar--brands that succeed in the 1990s must address Americans’ hope for a longer life through a healthy diet via fat substitutes, not sugar substitutes,” the report says.

Everyone seems to agree that fat will be the nutritional buzzword of the next decade. And most significant is the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s review of safety data for fat substitutes.

The product most likely to get approval first is Monsanto Co.’s Simplesse, a protein made of milk and egg whites. The company has petitioned FDA for its use in frozen desserts, but Simplesse could eventually be used in a variety of products from salad dressings to cheese.

FDA officials are more conservative about approval of Procter & Gamble’s Olestra, a fat substitute with no fat, no cholesterol and no calories. It would be used primarily for frying and sauteing and would open the door to myriad uses in processed food. Consumer groups have expressed concern that rat tests performed by Procter & Gamble have showed increases in tumor rates as well as liver changes, but company officials maintain the product is safe.

This also may be the decade for the approval of Lev-O-Cal, a form of sugar without calories. The L-sugar, also known as a left-handed sugar, is the mirror image of regular sugar and therefore cannot be digested. Biospherics Inc. of Beltsville, Md., received a patent on the sugar in 1981 and tests are continuing. Gilbert Levin, Biospherics’ president, says he hopes the product will be on the market by the mid-1990s.

The eat-for-health movement also includes foods that make outright medical claims. And Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit consumer group, says government will have to get tough with the manufacturers’ health claims in the ‘90s. Already we have seen advertisements promising that beef will give you strength and cereal boxes that promise cancer prevention.

“The food giants have gotten away with marketing murder,” Jacobson says.

Prediction: The ready-to-eat concept will be as much a way of life as ready-to-wear.

Trade journals and food experts agree that shelf-stable foods and refrigerated meals will compete aggressively with frozen for the consumer food dollar.

But the biggest challenge is who--the supermarket or the manufacturer--will best be able to please the consumer with fresh, ready-to-eat dinners, according to Friedman of New Product News. Manufacturers’ efforts have failed previously because of the time lag between preparation and consumption.

Mona Doyle, food trends analyst and president of the Consumer Network in Philadelphia, agrees that refrigerated takeout hits consumer hot buttons because it eliminates stress and the need to plan.

“Fresh and ready is what takeout is really based on,” she says. “And refrigerated alternatives to fast food, frozen food and restaurant food are bubbling up and creating excitement. Takeout, fresh and ready, is more comfortable, hassle-free and much faster than eating out. The British have it . . . the Japanese have it . . . the Americans want it.”

Prediction: Consumers will face a conflict between a need for convenience and a desire to save the environment.

Truly biodegradable packaging is sure to become an issue in the 1990s as state and local governments enact tough environmental laws and consumers demand less of a disposable life style.

Doyle’s Philadelphia organization, which maintains a 5,000-member panel of consumers across the country, has found that people are asking for help to wean themselves from what they call “damaging convenience.”

“I think the state of our knowledge of what is environmentally sound is where we were with nutrition 15 years ago,” she says. “We are all on a learning curve. And we are all hooked on a convenience life style. More important than the fast cooking in the microwave is the throwaway factor. Just listen to what the kids say--there’s no cleanup because it all goes in the trash. What are we prepared to give up?”

The industry isn’t standing still on this issue. A Newspaper Advertising Bureau survey of food and supermarket executives predicted that 90% of all grocery packaging will be biodegradable by the year 2010. And manufacturers, such as the Campbell Soup Co., already have task forces to study the trade-off between convenience and ecology.

“We may have to eventually go back to transferring the food to another dish to cook the microwavable food,” says Dick Nelson, director of marketing services for Campbell’s.

“But our research shows us if we take away the slightest convenience, the consumer turns off. It’s like going to a lesser house or a lesser car. We don’t like to cut back on the convenience we have achieved. But the concept of keeping the world green (the European Greens movement) is going to make people realize that they may have to do something themselves about disposable goods.”

Prediction: The microwave will become more of a factor in our lives as technology advances.

Many of us have been turned off by real cooking in the microwave and use it only to heat water or save time baking potatoes. Coming technological advances--such as susceptors for crisping and browning foods--are likely to change our cooking habits.

Today, 60% of American homes have microwaves, and the experts say they will be in 90% of homes by 2000. Many of us will have more than one--microwaves in our cars and pods of microwaves in our homes, one for each family member.

“Children today are learning to cook in the microwave,” adds Dick Nelson of Campbell’s. “They don’t learn to cook on the top of the stove. They don’t learn the oven. As kids adopt the microwave as a primary cooking appliance, the standards of what food looks like and tastes like will change.”

Prediction: Escalating numbers of Asian and Hispanic immigrants will introduce us to new foods.

Only about 20 plants feed the planet out of a universe of 20,000, says Noel D. Vietmeyer of the National Research Council. As recent immigrants from Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America continue to flock to the United States, he says, they will demand the fruits and vegetables of their homelands. Soon the rest of us will be comfortable using everything from lemon grass to jicama.

For example, U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists in Beaumont, Texas, have responded to requests from Cambodian refugees to develop a jasmine rice that could be grown locally. The rice, which releases a jasmine scent when it cooks, is a long grain that produces a stickier texture that Asians prefer. Charles Bollich, a Department of Agriculture research agronomist working on the project, says Jasmine 85 should be released as a new variety within a year.

Prediction: Food technology will help us avoid pesticides and eat healthier.

Genetic engineering and biotechnology will help solve some of the problems we faced during the past decade.

Scientists are working on producing fruits and vegetables that are naturally resistant to disease and insects. Research is continuing on injecting good bacteria into eggs to prevent salmonella food poisoning, on making fish larger and beef leaner.

So where is all this headed in the next decade?

Phillip Lempert, editor and publisher of the Lempert Report, a biweekly food marketing analysis, says customers are becoming more knowledgeable and more sophisticated. As a result, “me-too” and weird products just aren’t going to sell as well.

“As we enter the ‘90s, the American consumer will be more demanding of an honest and healthy food supply,” he says. “The headlines of ‘killer foods’ or ‘magic bullets’ will be replaced with moderation. Environmentally and politically friendly issues will become part of our lives as well as our kitchen table.”