Top 10 Hipster Food Trends that Need to Die

Some food crazes live up to the hype... and then there’s rainbow food. It all started with a bagel, and since then, the trend has been extended to other pastries like bread, cakes and donuts, as well as pizza, grilled cheese, pasta... even lattes. While you can’t blame businesses for wanting to cash in on what’s fashionable, apart from recreating the childhood experience of eating Play-Doh, rainbow-ifying food serves no conceivable purpose – the food doesn’t even taste different! The only foods that should be rainbow colored are: cereal, candy, and ice cream. If it doesn’t fit into one of those categories, you’re just wasting food coloring. And that goes for anything in the unicorn or mermaid inspired vein as well.

Sushi is Japanese. Burritos are Mexican. While fusion cuisine can result in something truly wonderful… this is NOT that. It seemingly undermines both dishes. Fish is perfectly fine in a burrito... When it’s cooked! And sushi is meant to be enjoyed in bite size portions, so that you can taste the nuanced combination of ingredients all at once. Furthermore, while all you can eat sushi places are popular, there is such a thing as too much sushi. This sushiritto simply feels excessive: just because you like two things separately, doesn’t necessarily mean they would be good together. For instance, you might like swimming and needle work, but you wouldn’t knit a sweater in a pool, would you? Case closed!

Ah yes, the answer to all things brightly colored. Whether it’s ice cream or any type of bun, the use of activated charcoal is an advent in the hipster culinary world. In actuality, though, this stuff has been used to whiten teeth and even help poisoned patients for quite some time. Thing is, with the growing trend of activated charcoal in food, and even in beauty products, people everywhere are singing its praises and claiming it has health benefits aplenty. A spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics stated that eating too much of this good thing can lead to your insides — specifically the stomach and small intestine — being seriously clogged up. So… maybe kill this fad for your own sake.

Putting a beverage in a bowl is like shoving a hamburger in a glass. It just doesn’t make sense. Other than creating appealing Instagram pictures, there’s no real benefit. It seems as if, upon realizing that drinking a smoothie from a soup bowl was impractical, rather than reaching for glass, people decided to double-down on their mistake - loading it up with food items, like fruit, granola, and other healthy toppings, so that they would have to consume it with a spoon and thus, justify the bowl. Okay, cool... but now it’s not a smoothie, because you can’t drink it! Just keep your drinks in your cups and your food in your bowls and everything will be just fine.

We won’t hold it against you if you have an actual Gluten allergy and need to replace regular dough with a cauliflower one, or if you’re on a low carb diet and are in desperate of a relatively low-carb cheat meal. Everyone deserves pizza regardless of restrictions… it’s just one of those essential foods. But if you make a pizza using cauliflower instead of traditional dough because you’ve “heard a lot about it”, then prepared to be judged! Pizza is the king of junk foods, and shouldn’t be tampered with without just cause. It’s already perfect in it’s many accepted forms, from thin-crust to deep dish. It simply doesn’t need to be reinvented.

Chia seeds gained popularity among health food junkies a few years ago as a result of the crazy amount of nutrients they can deliver with just a few spoonfuls. People started adding them to smoothies, protein bars, and baked goods, which are all totally acceptable chia seed applications. But now... whole jars revolve around the seed. This popular breakfast dish typically includes ingredients like milk, yogurt, fruit, and an excessive amount of chia seeds to create a sort of pudding. But half of them look like vomit… so maybe don’t ‘gram it? We like to look at beautifully crafted food porn, and are thoroughly disinterested in a lecture on nutrition, so maybe keep your breakfast slop to yourself.

So rumor has it that cold brew coffee does taste better than plain old iced coffee, as during the chilling process of the latter, you either end up diluting the coffee or losing some of the flavor. That may be true, but the steps involved in making cold brew coffee are so long and tedious that we can’t help but question whether it’s worth it. First it needs to steep for 12 hours - 24 if you like a stronger brew. Then it’s strained and left to chill. It may prove too strong however, and then you’ll want to figure out your dilution ratio. Does anyone really care enough to put that much effort into making a cup of coffee?

Matcha is a green tea powder that is actually quite tasty... when used to make green tea. And we’ll admit it; green tea ice cream is a nice palate cleanser too. But why stop there when the world is a hipster’s oyster waiting to be contaminated with their new favorite flavor of the moment? It happened with pumpkin spice, until that became too basic, and now it’s happening with matcha. Cake, chips, chocolate bars, Oreos, even beer! You name it and there’s a matcha-flavored version of it out there. It’s just another piece of evidence to prove that hipsters wholly ignore the concept of “too much of a good thing”.

If there’s a food that answers all problems, it’s probably the avocado. It’s delicious, nutritious, and super versatile. You can craft a mean guacamole, cook an egg in it for a protein-fuelled meal, add it to sushi, you name it. It would make sense, then, to appreciate that gift and, y’know, not think up unnecessary shenanigans and be hella wasteful. We’re looking at you, avolatte. As a result of the massive popularity of this green superfood, prices have completely skyrocketed in the 21st century. So next time you’re thinking of buying that $20 avocado toast, consider how future you might not get any.


Before we reveal our number one pick, here are a few dishonorable mentions:
- Green Juice
- Mason Jar Everything
- Pabst Blue Ribbon

This is possibly the least appealing entry on our list. If you’re unfamiliar with Kombucha, it’s the process of fermenting teas or juices by introducing it to SCOBY (“a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast”) and letting it sit for days or weeks. Why would anyone do this? Supposedly the beverage has countless health benefits, including warding off life threatening diseases. But according to the medical community, such benefits are nominal and largely unproven. In fact, although kombucha was never proven to be the definitive cause, there have been cases of people getting sick or even dying after consuming seemingly improperly prepared batches. People also don’t realize that it’s lightly alcoholic. But ultimately… it’s just kind of gross.