Mintel

If you pooh-pooh generic table salt, you're not alone. As USA Today reports, sea salt is so hot right now. In 2010 alone, it's been introduced to 1,350 new food products — a substantial jump compared to several years ago.

Trend analysts at research firm Mintel believe sea salt, which is known among culinary professionals for being flakier, crunchier, and larger in surface area than its table salt stepsister, "has the potential to grow as fast as low-carb did."

Campbell's, Whole Foods, and Target's Archer Farms all proudly offer products with sea salt on the ingredient label, be it in soups, chips, or sweets.

Wendy's is the latest to join the club, announcing it'll overhaul its fries for the first time in 41 years with a new sea salt-seasoned version, out in all its stores by the end of next week. Its explanation for the addition? "There's a halo around [sea salt]. People associate it with good, natural things." What do you think of the craze? Do you find the trend worth its salt?

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Mintel, a company that creates "Beauty Innovation Forecasts" each year, has come out with what it says will be the beauty trends for 2010. So what does Mintel say we'll see more of? Apparently, next year will be full of these things:

• Products that claim to enhance psychological well-being
• A new, more result-oriented focus on natural and organic products
• More formulations claiming to protect skin from environmental aggressors
• Even more treatments using biochemicals and claiming to have effects similar to Botox and other cosmetic procedures.

Only thing is, a lot of these trends have been around for a while. Plus, most products that skyrocket to success start out with a groundswell of support from actual consumers, not a market prediction from on high. What do you think of top-down prognostications like this? Can someone actually predict what you'll be excited about, or is it a whole lot more complex than that?