Food experts claim kebabs are our next food trend Anyone for a kebab? Photo By Erin Byrne. MOVE over Mexico, our next big food trend will be Middle Eastern, specifically the humble kebab, if food experts are to be believed. A recent survey from BIS found that more than one in ten fast food consumers now eat Middle Eastern cuisine. Think lemon, garlic, parsley, marinated meat and lashes of dusky hummus or Baba Gahnoush on oodles of warm, flat Lebanese bread. Dominic Cain, a spokesperson for Ali Baba, one of Australia's oldest Middle Eastern food retail chains told news.com.au the recent research does not surprise them - kebabs have never been more popular. The company have sold over 1.9 million kebabs across the country in the past 12 months, with Saturday lunchtimes having recently overtaken the popularity of the Friday night kebab feast. Elizabeth Meryment, a food writer for News Limited, said the newly emerging Middle Eastern trend can be traced back to a new national focus on healthier eating habits. I think Middle Eastern food suits our more health-conscious eating habits, as the food is fresher, with a big use of salads and herbs, and often pulses such as chick peas instead of meat. This move to a semi-vegetarian focus is also an emerging trend, as people become more worried about the factory-style production of meat," Ms Meryment said. This new food trend might even help us get more creative with our kebab toppings - because according to Dominic Cain Australians can be pretty predictable in that department. Our most popular kebab is beef, cheese, BBQ sauce. For some reason Australians can't get enough of BBQ sauce taste and much prefer it to the more traditional, or authentic garlic sauce," he said. We're also split down gender lines when it comes to what meat we choose to roll up inside our kebab. Women tend chicken or vegetarian options, while men go for beef," Mr Cain said. And there is even a regional pattern. In the ACT and Queensland people tend to eat far more chicken kebabs. Victorians love lamb and in New South Wales most people go for beef. "In some ways these preferences can be linked to the migrant patterns in each state and the predominant Middle Eastern cultures that settled there," he said.