When out and about in England of late, we’ve noticed a huge increase in the number of pistachio-based goods. It’s all over the place, which when combined with the matcha fad has meant a mass of green everywhere.

But where the hell did this obsession come from? It seems so out of the ordinary, a fad from the green, almost nonsensical in its meteoric rise to stardom. Then we did some research to find out. Oh yes.

There’s Plenty of Pistachio in England

It didn’t take long to find the culprit… and it’s GODDAMN social media’s fault (all over again). See this March 2026 feature by BBC food journalist Polly Weeks: Why are we going nuts for pistachios?

“Back in December 2023, a TikTok user shared a video of herself eating a chocolate bar she bought in Dubai. It was filled with a vibrant green pistachio cream and shredded pastry. The video quickly took off and has racked up millions of views.

Nicknamed ‘Dubai chocolate,’ the bars became 2025’s ‘it’ snack, with hundreds of thousands of social media posts sporting the hashtag #Dubaichocolate. Now, in addition to the many different brands of Dubai-inspired chocolate bars, there’s a desire for pistachio creams, pastes, pastries and ice cream.

Emilie Wolfman, trend innovation manager at Waitrose, said the supermarket has seen a massive increase in consumers wanting pistachio products since the social media trend started.”

So that’s it. Some egomaniac on TikTok has led to supermarkets going capitalism and flooding shelves with pistachio-based foodstuffs.

We’ve seen articles on this craze also in The Spectator, The Observer etc.

You can trace this all to small, independent businesses running these items on their menu. A guide to all things pistachio in London from July 2024 covers this well. See below with the Pistachio Gelato Croissant in Covent Garden.

The difference since summer 2024 is big brands have now got involved, which is why we’ve been seeing this foodstuff in the UK’s major supermarkets.

Capitalists have sensed an opportunity and swung in, as they did seven or so years back with a brief vegan food obsession (that’s since trailed off somewhat). But this nuts thing is going from strength to strength right now, even Häagen-Dazs is in on the act with an ice cream flavour.

The thing with this influx of green foodstuffs is none of this is overly cheap, they’re kind of a luxury item. Polly Weeks’ article notes the likes of pistachio cream cost over £10 for a jar. Pist (pissed?) Sicilian Pistachio Cream Spread (600 g) is £11.89.

For the sake of ultra-processed food glory, we did an ingredients check on the above and found:

PISTACHIO 45%, sugar, MILK powder, MILK whey powder, non hydrogenated vegetable fats (sunflower seed oil, coconut oil, cocoa butter), extra virgin olive oil, emulsifier: SOY lecithin, flavourings. May contain other nuts: Almonds, Hazelnuts, Walnuts, Cashews. Does not contain gluten.

Emulsifiers are the big no-no UPF, by the way. Additives used to blend oil and water, which helps greatly extend shelf life (at the cost of your health, of course).

As in that glorious capitalist way, pretty much none of the foods we researched are healthy. You can have pistachio nuts on their own and in small amounts they’re very good for you. But when stuffed in with a load of sugary UPF bollocks it’s really not good.

Now we’re 41 here at Professional Moron, a focus on being healthy is on our minds. Eating healthily doesn’t have to be boring and once you kick the sugar and other chemicals out of your system (takes about three days of cold turkey), you won’t miss this garbage. AND you’ll feel a lot better.

Anyway, onto the next green monstrosity.

Taking a Look at Pistachio Desserts

A brief look on YouTube and it’s apparent this foodstuff is kicking off everywhere in the western world. There’s a tiramisu above, then below we’ve got a cheesecake recipe.

These have interested us as they’ve popped up in all supermarkets we’ve searched around online for. And you can’t go wrong with a check of Iceland (see previously our piece on the UK’s cash-in on Valentine’s Day foods) and its low-budget creations.

England is a nation of fussy eaters, so we can’t half imagine the unsettled reaction some “back in my day” types will have at the likes of pistachio donuts (£2.50).

Then there’s stuff like Nuii’s brand of ANTALOLIAN range, which just sounds so bloody fancy we can feel the type II diabetes already!

Starbucks is in on the act, too. Its gained a reputation for customers ordering Diabetes in a Cup from the chain stores, giant concoctions of mass-sugar-meets-coffee-meets-fizzy-drink experiments that shouldn’t exist.

But it does and it’s made its way to supermarket shelves, too, in the form of the Starbucks Limited Edition Summer Escape Pistachio Flavour Iced Coffee (£2.20 for . It even has a website dedicated to it! See the Summer Escape coffee.

That’s 17g of sugar in 220ml by the way. And the ingredients list for what amounts to a coffee:

2% Fat Milk (75%), Starbucks® Arabica Coffee (Water, Coffee Extract) (20%), Sugar (4.7%), Natural Flavouring, Acidity Regulator (Potassium Carbonate), Stabilisers (Gellan Gum, Carrageenan)

Our suggestions for something similar, but that’s actually good for you, is to have a black coffee with a dash of ground black pepper and turmeric. Three ingredients, all organic where you can:

1. Black coffee
2. Black pepper
3. Turmeric

Brew up the black coffee, pour it into a mug, let it cool a bit, then add the spices. You need to get the black pepper in, otherwise the full health benefits of turmeric aren’t released.

This is incredibly easy to make, cheap, and has a big bunch of anti-inflammatory properties. Plus, then you can just eat some some nuts out of a packet or something.

As for the pistachio capitalism craze, it’ll die an eventual death when something else takes over (cabbage, perhaps?). But in the meantime, there are a lot of expanding waistlines due to this frenzy.

Do yourself a favour and ignore the fad.