Food Porn is a glamorized visual presentation of cooking or eating in advertisements, infomercials, blogs, cooking shows or other visual media.

In other words it is photos of your meal that you share with the world through social media.

Who cares what you eat or cook?  Who?

I tried a food blog myself, Food Nazi, and soon realized that it was a waste of time…..no one wanted to know how to prepare the food just wanted cutsey photos that they could oh and ah over.

What purpose does this sort of ‘porn’ accomplish?  And why does a blogger get paid to show him/her eating?

I would rather watch grass grow (and that is being polite)…..

Most of this stuff shows very unhealthy foods…and it does nothing to help fight the growing problem of American obesity.

But why does this add to the problem?

In some cases food porn (specifically foods high in fat and sugar) has been shown to increase Ghrelin (the hunger hormone). It’s also been found to stimulate the prefrontal cortex and the insula – two key components of the brain which are involved in reward and decision making. There’s also a suggestion that images of #food porn could stimulate cue-induced eating. This could mean that those who engage with more food porn have a greater risk of consuming larger amounts of high sugar, high fat foods.

Why do these vision help create a problem?

• Food porn increases hunger. Viewing images of desirable foods provokes your appetite. In one study, participants watched a seven-minute restaurant review that was riddled with pancakes, waffles, hamburgers and other diner staples. This led to increased hunger ratings among not only participants who hadn’t eaten for a while but also among those who had just finished a meal.
• Food porn promotes unhealthy food. Many of the recipes that top chefs make on television are high in calories and use unhealthful ingredients. This has been proven through systematic analysis of TV chefs’ recipes, which tend to be much higher in fat, saturated fat and sodium. While fewer than half of viewers went on to actually make those recipes at home, the concern is that the foods we see being made, and the food portions we see being served on TV may set norms for what we consider appropriate.
• The more food porn you view, the higher your body mass index (BMI). Spence notes that the link is only correlational, not causal, but it’s still noteable that people who watch more food TV have a higher BMI.
• Food porn drains mental resources. Whenever we view images of food, our brains can’t help but engage in mental simulation — we imagine ourselves eating that food. We therefore need to expend some mental resources to resist all of these virtual temptations. In other words, we can’t get the thought of eating that food out of our heads after we see it, and in a lot of cases, we’re going to choose the unhealthful food over a more nutritious choice.

The one thing that I can still do t my age is use my mind…..I refuse to do anything that would lessen the process and food porn is one of those worthless endeavors.

I mentioned my idle food blog, Food Nazi and if anyone is interested in the short lived attempt…https://thefoodnazi.wordpress.com/

Enjoy your Sunday…..

Be well….Be safe….

“lego ergo scribo”