The Food Blogging Phenomenon

By Kelly Turner on July 6th, 2009

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The Internet seems to have shifted in the past couple of years from a place to find information, to a place to share information- usually about ourselves.  With the popularity of sites like Facebook, myspace, and twitter, people are sharing private details of their life with the entire world.  Everything from their deepest darkest secrets, to the most mundane bits of pointless information.

Weblogs, or blogs as they are more commonly known, are also ways to invite people into your life.  Blogs are like online journals anyone can start for free.  Unlike traditional journals, after you write your entry, it is published on the Internet for the entire world to see.  If people find you interesting enough they will come back and continue to read.

Most personal blogs are just personal musing and ramblings, but an odd little niche has popped up in the blogosphere: the food blog.

Written by “foodies” people simply blog about what they eat everyday.  Some post recipes, or share specialty meals, like vegan or gluten free, but most are just an online food journal, with multiple posts daily of absolutely everything that enters the foodie’s mouth. If they are at a restaurant, the movies, in the car, at parties, at home, anywhere, they snap a picture before they bite and post it on their blog.   Most of these are health-minded blogs, meant to show healthy meals and snacks, and talk about little else besides food.

I blog as part of my living. I consider this job here at Twirlit blogging, and I write for a few other sites as well. I also have my own blog, where I answer health and fitness questions, and basically share my personal trainer knowledge with my readers. I don’t get paid for this, and it probably monopolizes most of my computer time. Taking pictures, uploading pictures, writing posts, answering emails and comments- it is pretty time consuming.  And I don’t even post daily.

I also don’t write about the details of my life too often.  My readers know a lot about me, but I don’t often post pictures of myself, or talk about anything going on in my life that doesn’t pertain to what I am trying to teach, or fitness in general.  I tried it for a while, but found that 1) I’m not very interesting and why would people want to read about me anyway, and 2) I don’t want to invite strangers into my life. I feel like it doesn’t offer anything but an ego stroke and a few creepy questions and emails.

As a fitness professional, I know the value of food journaling, especially when you are trying to lose weight. For most people it is hard to just jot it down in a book you carry with you and remember to bring it in once a week for me to look at it (you know who you are) so I can’t help but thinktaking a picture of everything you eat before you eat it, no matter where you are and posting it on the Internet for the world to see multiple times a day is a little- obsessive? Every nibble, every snack, documented in both print and picture.

I posted a few questions on my personal blog, asking foodies why they do it.  I have a fitness site so a lot of my readers are health foodies with foodie blogs.  The overwhelming response was that it keeps them accountable if their goal is weight loss and they get great feedback from their readers that their site helps others with their own healthy lifestyle journey.

Truthfully, I think people just like to look at food and think, “yum.” People like to eat. Its a fact.  I read the blogs occasionally to support my readers and fellow bloggers, and sometimes I come away with a new product to try or an easy meal idea, but usually I just think about how much time and effort it takes- for food.

I see people everyday that are ruled by their food, either by eating too much or too little, and if you know a little about me you know I used to battle my own food issues years ago, which is why it worries me when people are so preoccupied with everything they are eating, whether its “healthy” or not.  Like I said, these are valid points, but isn’t the point of trying to live a healthy lifestyle to be able to integrate it into your life seamlessly?  Your choices may be healthy, but you’d be pretty hard up to convince me that taking a picture of every morsel that passes your lips and posting it on theinternet is a healthy behavior.

Food is abused in many ways, but it is always to control your food to fake a sense of control over your life.  Does food blogging fit? In my opinion, it depends. I guess the question really is, when does it cross the line? Unfortunately, just like with anything, it is different for everyone.
I invite all you foodies to yell at me now share why you blog, and why food is important enough to you to devote so much time to it- as opposed to something else.  Chat away.