On a recent visit to the inlaws in Oshawa, I made a trip to the local Wal-Mart. At the front door, a small boy wearing a hockey jacket was bellowing, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts! Get your Krispy Kremes here! First time in Oshawa!

Not far away a woman who looked like his mother sat at a table stocked high with boxes, presumably filled with Krispy Kremes, the American-made doughnut touted to be the Next Big Thing to tempt consumers' tastebuds. Around the table were crowded at least a dozen people, each with $7 in their hands to pay for a dozen doughnuts to support the boy's hockey team.

When I left the store 30 minutes later, the boy was still there, and so were his mother and a crowd of customers. The only difference was the pile of boxes had dwindled to a handful.

I didn't buy any Krispy Kremes. And in that I failed to take part in what is rapidly becoming one of the defining trends of our times -- the increasing consumption of “forbidden fruits,” items that, until recently, had become politically incorrect, but that people clearly never stopped craving.

Doughnuts, meat, fur coats, gas-guzzling vehicles, cigarettes, coffee. Every- where you look, people are buying items we gave up in the '70s and '80s because someone told us they would make us fat, or kill us, or kill someone or something else.

Why the turnaround? Apparently, good timing. Just as we were due to be tired of depriving ourselves, along comes the threat of war to justify indulgence.

“Life is short, the world is changing,” ex- plains Tom Julian, a trends analyst with Fallon Worldwide, a New York-based advertising company, who admits to a Krispy Kremes addiction. “If for a while there was fantasy and escapism, today our concerns are more about the current situation, the reality of things, of accepting those things and doing the best you can with them ... It's about reaching for what's real.”

Real, yes. But according to futurist Faith Popcorn, the writing was on the wall for the return to such “small indulgences” as early as 1996. In her book Clicking: 17 Trends that Drive Your Business and Your Life, Popcorn predicted “rebellious con- summers” would grow “tired of being told what's good for them” and would cut loose by drinking martinis instead of wine, eating red meat instead of salad, smoking moderately, wearing fur and scarfing down ice-cream -- full-fat please. She predicted these changes, along with others such as more body-flattering clothing, aromatherapy and the decline of huge shopping malls, would occur at the end of the '90s and during the early years of the 21st century. And, largely, she has been right.

Take fur. In 1985, thanks to high-profile campaigns equating the wearing of fur with cruelty, only 42 of the world's major fashion designers reached for fur to use in their collections. This fall, that number has shot to 300, despite increasingly desperate efforts by groups such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to discourage its use.

In concert with designers, celebrities are climbing back on to the fur bandwagon. Jennifer Lopez wears it. Supermodels Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss and Cindy Crawford are donning sable and mink for advertisers. The world's most highly paid model, Gisele Bundchen, sports mink for Blackglama in the December issue of Vogue magazine. “The consensus in the fashion world is that Bundchen's new, high-profile association with the fur industry coincides with an increasingly enthusiastic attitude among designers and the cognoscenti towards its use,” the Times of London reported last month.

Ordinary consumers are also shelling out. The wholesale value of Canadian fur exports surged to more than $334 million last year, more than double its level in 1992, according to the Fur Council of Canada. In the United States, fur sales that remained flat around the $1.2-billion U.S. mark throughout most of the '90s took off in 1999, peaking at $1.69 billion in 2000 and sliding back slightly last year because of the warm winter.

The same is true of automobiles. Small, cheap cars strong on fuel-efficiency are being ignored on car lots in favour of expensive, gas-gobbling sports utility vehicles. For 2000 model-year passenger vehicles sold in the U.S., the average gas mileage was 24 miles per gallon, the worst level since 1980.Despite growing criticism that SUVs are wasteful, unsafe and harm the environment, sales continue to soar.

The way we eat is also changing. Meat consumption in the U.S. in 2001 was at its highest level since 1997, rising to 187.8 pounds per year per person from 174.4 pounds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Similar patterns were re- ported by Statistics Canada. Even health spas are changing their menus: Mii Amo, an upscale spa in Sedona, Arizona, where the cost of a three-night stay starts at $1,590 U.S., offers guests chocolate cake for dessert and wine with their meals.

Stephen Robinson, a writer with the London Daily Telegraph who spent sever- al years in Washington, D.C., noticed many changes on a recent visit back to the States. “What struck me was how every- one was eating red meat – great slabs of sirloin and rib-eye, smeared with mustard, served with French fries, and washed down with red wine,” Robinson wrote in a recent piece for the Telegraph. “When I was posted to Washington in 1990, the locals seemed to exist on salad and iced tea. But now the martini is back too, the bar- man told me, in its classic form: gin, straight up, with an olive, and exceptionally dry.”

Branded 15 years ago as a contributor to stress, coffee has become so popular it's hard to find a part of town that doesn't have a coffeehouse. Cigarette sales are down, but twenty- somethings are now the biggest users. They're also the biggest audience for movies and TV shows, which are starting to show smoking again. As for doughnuts, well, at Krispy Kremes outlets, people really do come in for the pastries. (At Tim Horton's it's not the doughnuts that bring in customers, it's the coffee.)

“People are looking for cheap thrills,” says Maddy Dychtwald, a San Francisco futurist and author of Cycles: How We Will Live, Work and Buy (Free Press/ Simon & Schuster), due to be published in February. “They're saying, 'OK, maybe I can't do exactly what I want, but I'm going to do something extravagant.' ”

Why now? Analysts see lots of causes – fears about safety and security as talk grows of war in Iraq, changing demo- graphics, and a desire for simplicity stemming from a disillusionment with glam- our and corporations.

When times are uncertain, “you put everything in check and you prioritize in such a different way,” says Julian. “I watch a person take solace in Starbucks or Krispy Kremes. They may do it once a week, but it's something that they are appreciating to the nth degree.”

“The upcoming influential generation always rebels against what came before,” says David Wolfe, creative director for The Doneger Group, a fashion retail analysis and trends forecasting company in New York. “What came before (the baby boomers) was politically correct in its own way ... We had our passions about antismoking and healthy eating and exercising and not wearing fur. Now those things seem uncool because it's a generation that is leaving the arena of influence and handing over to the next generation, who has to do just the opposite.”

Dychtwald also looks to major changes in the way society is made up. For the first time in human history, more than half the North American population is over 50, with baby boomers -- now aged 39 to 56 -- making up one-third of the population. As this group ages, they are becoming more worried about their future, she says.

“A lot of people in the U.S. realize they're not going to get a chance to retire the way their parents have. They can't afford it, and in response to that, knowing that they're going to be in the work force longer than they wanted or expected to be, they're spending more money ... They're saying 'Well, if I can't have that, then I'm going to have this. I'm going to be working till I die, so I might as well enjoy myself while I'm here.' ”

Fears for personal safety, the bankrupt morals of corporate America and the downfall of icons like lifestyle maven Martha Stewart are also contributing to this retreat to more basic values and simple activities. While 10 years ago, magazine covers celebrated celebrities who had kids but didn't get married, today's magazines are full of stories about celebrity weddings. On Dec. 9, the cover of Newsweek featured a teenage couple and a story touting “The New Virginity.” Inside, the magazine reported that in the U.S. teen sexual activity has reached a 10-year low and chastity is on the rise: In 2001, according to the Centers for Disease control, 46 per cent of American high schoolers said they'd had sexual intercourse, down from 54 per cent in 1991. Teenage pregnancies are also down. “I think a lot of those kinds of morals and values really are going back to the 1950s, and the fact that they're going back to those kinds of mores is helping to drive this cheap thrills interest,” Dychtwald says.

She and Wolfe both point to the popularity of the movie Far From Heaven, which is set in the '50s, as a reflection of the simple society that many people crave today. But neither wants nor expects that we will see the return of the sexism, racism and homophobia that permeated that decade and that form the heart of th film. “We're just more open as a society today,” says Dychtwald.

Another major difference is that the children of the baby boomers are what the U.S. National Center for Education calls “hypereducated,” better educated than the boomers, who are better educated than Generation X, the generation that followed them.

“I think that out of that education it's a lot harder to go back to the kind of simplicity that was prevalent in the '50s,” Dychtwald says. “It doesn't allow for it be- cause there's too much questioning that goes on. When you have an environment that closes so many doors, as the '50s did, and makes them so taboo, I just don't think it's possible with a well- educated population.”

The result is that while teenagers may opt to remain virgins longer (a return to '50s values), it will be OK to date outside their racial group or to date someone of the same sex (both '50s taboos). People may get married younger ('50s value), but also more often ('50s taboo).

“When I was researching my book, I came across a quote by Margaret Mead that she had been married three times and that 'each one was a success.' Each marriage met different needs at different points in her life, and I think there's a reality to that,” says Dychtwald.

Other '50s pleasures and lifestyle activities already look different. Coffee may be back, but it's gone well beyond cream and sugar as the only adornments. Fur may be in, but fur coats are no longer limited to a few pelts stitched together; they can be knit, woven, dyed and made to look like almost anything but fur. Gas guzzlers are back, but they're young and sporty, not big boats meant for driving to Florida.

“We're much more free and liberated today than we were in the '50s,” says Wolfe. “So I think what we do is take the mood and take the colours and take the fun part and spin doctor it by adding a layer of freedom and sexuality.”

As the population continues to age, and with growing terrorism around the world, our desire for simplicity and safety is only likely to increase, says Dychtwald.

“Instead of having 20 coats in your closet, get that one fabulous fur that you always dreamed about, even if it doesn't always go with everything that you thought before,” she advises. “You always dreamed about, so why not go for it?”

(Emphasis Added in Bold)