How Social Media is Changing the Way We Eat: New Trends

The evolution of eating from social media usage - Social media is changing how we eat and consume by shaping food consumption, trends, and eating habits. Dining platforms and social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok continue to display mouth-watering food, motivating users to try out new recipes and eat at trendy restaurants. Food bloggers, influencers, and audiences provide perspective on what the population deemed healthy or desirable to eat. If food is trending, individuals are likely to eat it. Viral food and reviews on social media can turn unheard-of restaurants into overnight sensations. Likewise, the rise in food delivery apps marketed through social media have made food more accessible to the public. Today, social media affects our eating habits through the high levels of exposure to food, engagement with food, and social pressure from peers to consume food.

How Social Media is Changing the Way We Eat ?

Social media has changed just about every aspect of modern life, including how we discover, eat, and even conceptualize food. Sites like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest have made eating a highly visual, shareable experience driven by trends. Below we explore some of the most significant ways social media influences our eating habits, as well as new trends emerging from the food movement online.

1. Food as Aesthetic Content: The Rise of Instagrammable Meals

Social media, especially on Instagram and TikTok, has equated beauty with taste when it comes to food. People are ordering food based on how glorious it looks, leading to:

1. Rainbow-colored foods (rainbow bagels, unicorn frappuccinos, charcoal ice cream)
2. Over-the-top plating (sushi donuts, deconstructed desserts, edible glitter)
3. Less-is-more food trends, e.g., smoothie bowls with perfectly placed toppings, matcha lattes with latte art

Impact: Restaurants and food companies now have visually appealing food and drinks to which people pay attention on social media. Sometimes presented at the expense of taste or nutrition.

2. Viral Food Trends & Challenges

Social media is rapidly accelerating food trends at a record pace, and some of these can even go viral overnight: TikTok Food Trends:

1. Pasta chips: (air fried pasta for the snack)
2. Baked feta pasta: (a TikTok viral recipe that create a feta shortage in Finland)
3. Cloud bread: (fluffy, low-carb egg white bread)
4. Dalgona coffee: (the whipped coffee trend that developed during lockdowns)
   

Food Challenges:

1. Spicy noodle challenges ( ie the "One Chip Challenge")
2. Mukbang (eating shows) - watching influencers consume massive amounts of food
3. ASMR eating videos - crunchy/slurping sounds for sensory pleasure.

3. The Influence of Food Influencers & Celebrities

Food bloggers, chefs, and influencers perform the dietary choice in several ways:

1. Recipe Tutorials (ex. 5-minute meals, healthy alternatives)
2. Product Endorsements (ex. Prime Hydration and the Pink Sauce debacle)
3. Diet Trends (ex. Keto, veganism, intermittent fasting)
   

For example, Gordon Ramsay, David Chang, and Binging with Babish are all influencers who have enormous followings and set trends related to food.

4. The Rise of Delivery & Ghost Kitchens

Food delivery services and ghost kitchens (restaurants for delivery only) are benefiting from social media marketing.

1. Instagram ads lead people to order from virtual brands.
2. Collaboration between TikTok influencers and food delivery apps (i.e., Uber Eats, DoorDash).
3. Limited-run meal items designed for social sharing.

Conclusion

Social media has transformed eating from a private necessity to a public spectacle defined by trends. It can drive culinary experimentation and global food trends, and it illuminates various issues of health misinformation, unrealistic expectations, and sustainability. As platforms change and evolve, and in turn how we perform and experience food, digital influence will undeniably become part of contemporary eating culture.