COMS 427 Blog post #2 Instagram and the changing face of food culture



Source: StudyBreakMagazine
Instagram is a social media platform which allows users to share pictures with their followers and hashtag them for collective discovery. In this blog post, we will examine two perspectives on how Instagram has changed food culture, for better or for worse.

              The Good


Source:  Food and Wine

Source: Popsugar
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One of the ways Instagram can be mobilized towards a pro-social attitude towards food is by making healthy food more relatable and attractive, especially to youth. Avocado toast has become an icon for all millenials, and it is a good example of the new wave of ‘cool’ foods on Instagram. #avocadotoast has 950k posts on Instagram and #avocado has 8.6 million. This aesthetic and gastronomical trend is related to others similar to it, such as acai bowls, smoothies, and other visually pleasing healthy foods. The premise behind these posts is clever; brightly coloured fruits and vegetables make for beautiful photography. But these motivations are not only aesthetic; in a recent study from the University of Washington, researchers describe how some people also turn to posting photos on Instagram to track food intake or to be held accountable by followers in meeting healthy eating or weight loss goals.

              The Bad
Just as how aesthetically pleasing healthy food has gone viral on Instagram, the opposite is also true. #cheatmeal has 3.1 million posts on Instagram and encompasses a wide variety of foods such as burgers, donuts, ice cream; items which represent an indulgent and maximalist view of food. In a 2017 Business.com article, writer Sara McGuire wrote: "The saying, 'We eat with our eyes' rings truer than ever in the age of information. The proliferation of foodie culture across social media has been on a steady rise in recent years." This can evolve into viral food challenges, where restaurants will offer compensation for successfully finishing a large amount of food; the implication being that the advertising they will get from the social media content sharing will outweigh the costs of the challenge.
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               The Ugly

Both #avocadotoast and #cheatmeal focus on the aesthetic quality of food. And to some extent, this has changed the way millenials in particualr think about food (Tandoh, 2016). An article in the Cut detailed how "a short ritual performed before a meal — such as, say, pausing to frame up, snap, and share that perfect image — positively influences our perception of the food on our plates … making [it] seem more delicious” (McNeilly, 2016). Consider this post by Martha Stewart, noted food culture influencer in the United States.
The reactions to her post were visceral, with many saying the food looked like “puke”. This is interesting because although Martha Stewart is very skilled with food, there is maybe a generational difference between her focus on food proper, and the millennial focus on food aesthetic.

In conclusion, the contemporary articulation of food culture on Instagram is complex. As is evidence by the Martha Stewart example, media literacy is required to be active on social media. But #cheatmeal and #avocado also signal the need for food literacy, to be able to make healthy food choices. It is the convergence of these two literacies that make Instagram food culture an important unit of analysis and one that deserves further attention.

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                                                                   Kayla + Devan

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