These supermarket essentials will be ‘extinct’ by 2050 — here’s what you’ll be eating instead

Onions and apples are staples in kitchens across the nation, but in 25 years’ time, they might have disappeared from cupboards, fridges and supermarket shelves.

This is according to Dr Morgaine Gaye, a food futurologist, who told Metro that some of the most common foods in the UK are at risk of going ‘extinct’ by 2050. 

The expert claimed that global warming is going to have a major impact on some of the products we ‘take for granted’, changing what we can grow and buy. 

‘It’s a bit like frogs boiling in a pot,’ she explains. ‘It’s so slow we don’t really notice but it’s getting wetter and warmer in Britain and [that means] the food being offered to us will change. 

Which foods are at risk of going extinct by 2025?

‘We will see a decline in things that we’ve always grown in the UK, such as common wheat, strawberries, apples and onions. These sorts of things that we just take for granted, as we’ve always managed to produce them in the southeast, they will not be as available.’

And it’s not just fruit and vegetables that we’ll be seeing less of, apparently as Dr Morgaine predicts meat (beef especially) and fish are going to be impacted too, due to a combination of climate issues, overfishing and skyrocketing costs.

‘Agriculture is fed, the animals are fed on crops and if there’s a drought because things are getting warmer, then meat prices are going to go up and we’re not going to be able to feed as many cows. Then you add in the carbon emissions and it suddenly becomes a really difficult equation, so people will have to start making different choices.’

Changing tastes will also play a big role, with the expert believing more and more of us will start to enjoy vegetarian meals.

‘There are so many vegetarian recipes now, but we’re only just understanding the real potential of vegetables,’ she says. ‘There’s a million things you can do with them and a million ways to mix them into your diet.’

We might even find ourselves being able to grow our own herbs, micro-greens and plant proteins on our clothing one day. 

Teaming up with HellFresh, for their Dinner from the Future 2025 report, Dr Morgaine, as well as Dr Joseph Poore a climate scientist at Oxford University, also revealed that there will be a rise in urban agriculture, which will even include innovations in material science ‘allowing nomads to stay self-sufficient by using their own clothing to grow food on the go’.

The example they gave was to imagine a puffer jacket, where each pocket is used to grow plants.

Dr Morgaine is also hopeful we’ll see a reduction in ultra-processed food (UPF) over time – but its the consumers that will be largely responsible for this change, not the climate.

‘It’s tricky and governments ultimately will sept in, but big food consortiums make a lot of money and are very powerful, so it also needs to come from consumers, because we all vote with our wallets,’ she explains.

‘We need to basically say we don’t want to buy that any more, it’s not what we need. But that will only happen if we starte to be better educated around our bodies and how we’re doing them a disservice with UPFs.

‘Over time I hope we’ll start to understand our gut microbiome, our DNA and how foods and meal kits can be tailored to our real specifics. If we have a full picture of health and wellness, we might not recognise [UPFs] as food.’

What foods will we be eating in the future?

While the numbers of strawberries and onions may dwindle, a warmer climate could mean we see big changes in the agricultural lanscape.

Different growing conditions would require a shift in crops, so what we are able to grow would change. This could mean an increase in such as coffee, olives and tropical fruits being grown closer to home.

‘These will be grown in the Mediterranean rather than further out and perhaps we’ll start to become more of a wine area, growing grapes,’ Dr Morgaine predicts.

‘Olives and sweet potatoes will also more abundantly grow in the UK and Northern Europe – things that haven’t ordinarily been available to us before.’

Dinnertime will also look rather different by 2050 with several surprising foods slated to become commonplace, according to the experts.

These include kelp, dandelions, cactus (prickly pear), shellfish, olives, mushrooms, milk thistle, sea fennel, barberry, sorrel, ribwort plantain, camelina and carob. The latter is particularly interesting, as Dr Morgaine says it could become a chocolate substitute.

There are a number of reasons why these particular foods could become the norm in future, but a big one is that they can help reduce carbon emissions.

Instead of emitting greenhouse gases, some of the products are able to absorb them. Take seaweed and kelp, for instance, which are already a staple in many Asian cuisines. These are photosynthetic in nature, so help remove carbon from the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, certain species of cacti have been found to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it into calcium carbonate.

Shellfish are also interesting as they act as ‘carbon sinks’ by sequestering carbon in their shells.