There’s no rhyme or reason when it comes to predicting the food trends that we'll see emerging in 2017. Look back over the past years and bubble tea, the foraging fad, cup cakes and pulled pork thankfully seem like distant memories while last year's style suggestions for the food industry failed to make a splash. Freak-shakes (taking a perfectly good pudding and blending it with milk), rainbow bagels (taking a perfectly good bagel and making it look toxic) and fermented food (the stuff you used to throw away in horror) thankfully never really made it past hipster eateries. Let's hope the same can be said of most of this year's nominations.

In 2017 we can, according to 'food influencers' look forward to vegetable yoghurts - apres Ski, if you like. I can't stand the sour milk pots at the best of times so the thought of adding cauliflower, beetroot or Brussels sprouts seems to add insult to injury. Camel milk, which boasts more protein and lower cholesterol than your average semi-skimmed milk, will apparently replace the almond milk and yesterday's-news-coconut water in your fridge. It costs £11 for 500ml, so most of the cash will be replaced with an overdraft in your bank account, too.

Insects are, once again - yawn - being touted as a super food. You buy them on the internet. No food should ever be bought online. Fact. Bizarrely, avocado was the undoubted success of the past year with claims that it outsold the humble orange. Then again, the best-selling dish on The Assembly House menu is the chicken and ham pancake made from a recipe from my grubby recipe book from the 1970s. I'm hoping to repeat the trick this year with my seafood vol au vent!

Grains, cereals, seeds and fruits are said to be set to become menu mainstays - I think this one has more chance given the dietary fads, advice from the doctors, the rise of the vocal vegan movement and the fact they actually taste nice. Also, being inexpensive, the chances of them making into commercial kitchens are somewhat higher. Think pasta, polenta and risotto, the chef and his accountants’ dream. This tip is given even more credence with the stove shattering news that the most prestigious cooking competition in the professional world, the Bocuse d’Or, is demanding competitors eschew the meat element from their recipes and produce classical vegetarian cuisine in Paul Bocuse's 2017 culinary Grand Prix. The memorable meal I ate at his Lyon gastronomic temple was a homage to five decades of culinary tradition, so it gladdens my heart, makes my pulse race and gives me hope for humanity that another tip for the coming year is a return to old-fashioned service values and classical cooking.

I think Heston Blumenthal can take some of the credit for this one. His banana and bacon trifle for a leading supermarket was the nadir of a very difficult year. It's time for a backlash. If you bought one, go and sit on the naughty step and think about what you did last year.