Something came up in the tail end of my crit last Thursday that made me verbally explode, although it was right when we were supposed to be wrapping up so I didn't get to rant and rave quite as much as I would have otherwise. (so it was probably good timing.)
In any case, considering my heated reaction I thought I'd better explain my views more thoroughly on here.
Sometimes it seems that social media is all about food. The internet is buzzing with an endless stream of recipes and food photography. Is it even possible to go out for a meal these days without someone taking a photo of it and posting it online before they've even picked up a fork?
A while ago I read an article about a health blogger who has used social media as a platform to create a business, which seemed to be doing well. Recently, however, she was exposed as a fraud. Her claim to have healed herself of various cancers through a specific diet and lifestyle regime was a lie.
Frankly, this should come as no surprise. But as far as I’m concerned that isn’t the heart of the issue. The problem is that, just like many similar bloggers, the woman has no qualifications and no real scientific backing to substantiate her health/diet ‘advice’ in the first place.
In short, she should never have charged anyone money for her services, regardless of whether or not her recovery story was real or fake. As Tori mentioned , a lot of people are so desperate in their pursuit of the particular 'Healthy Lifestyle' glamorised by social media that they'll follow any advice if it has the right pictures attached to it.
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This story reminds me of something that happened at home a few weeks ago. My sister made a ‘healthy banana cake.' It was refined sugar free, gluten free, vegan, etc., and it failed completely. The middle didn’t set, and the outside tasted like a burnt sea sponge. I asked where she got the recipe from, and she said simply ‘Online.’ Which didn’t really answer the question, so I asked, ‘What blog?’ and she replied, ‘Have you heard of Madeline Bourke?’
I sure have. Madeline Bourke is a social media queen who has turned her name into an industry, posting daily photos of her meals, designer exercise gear, bikini body… and charging $15 AUD a pop for her digital recipe book and ‘7 day eating plan’.
Her expertise? None. Miss Bourke dropped out of her first year of studying nutrition. She works as a receptionist and a part-time model, and has no qualifications (except perhaps for high school...)
With this in mind, and since they haven’t been properly tested or officially published, I wouldn’t trust any one of her recipes enough to try them, let alone pay $15 to access them! And while I agree with most of her points on what constitutes a healthy diet, that’s just because it’s common sense. You don't have to be a genius to suggest that your readers eat more vegetables.
My sister and I have argued over this before, and the failed cake was a perfect case-in-point. Despite her good intentions to make baking healthier, Madeline Bourke is not by any means an expert baker. Yet thousands of people are following her, and making her doomed-to-fail recipes.
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Surely we know that most of these bloggers aren’t experts. That’s not the drawcard. The whole food-blogging industry is just driven by curiosity: we’re curious to see what other people eat, and to try it ourselves, because we’re fundamentally interested in the way other people live.
And this is where the internet comes in extremely handy. Our exposure to the lives of people outside of our own social networks used to be limited to carefully selected, edited and printed forms, i.e. books and magazines and newspapers. No wonder we resorted to seeking out ‘pen pals.’ Who knew what life was really like for other ordinary people in other countries?
Now, via the internet, we have millions of pen pals at our fingertips, with no obligation to write back. Whether they live here in NZ or on the other side of the planet, a world of bloggers are just living out their day to day lives, and writing about it, and sharing photos, in real time. In many cases, they are also sharing recipes.
And I think that's incredibly exciting. I’m grateful that I live in this day and age when I can read all about the lives of people who are totally normal, rather than celebrities. I'd way rather poke my nose into the lives and kitchens of ordinary people, who aren’t famous or exceptionally interesting or followed by paparazzi.
Celebrity culture is proof that even mature, functioning adults have imaginary friends. I’m not interested at all in celebrities, but the select handful of bloggers who I follow definitely fill an equivalent role.
Food blogs are the field of the internet that I’m most interested in and probably spend the most time looking at. However, unlike my sister, swindled by the glamorous image feeds of self-promoting foodstagrammers, I'm wary, and extremely picky, when it comes to which ones I read. Here's a run-down of some of my favourite foodie people in the online world:
Sarah has a degree in holistic nutrition and many years of experience as a chef in a vegetarian restaurant. Whenever anyone asks me about healthy eating, I direct them to this blog, My New Roots. Her blog is a cornucopia of seasonal super-healthy, highly seasonal, mostly plant-based recipes. Her passion for and vast knowledge of nutrition is evident in every post, and she regularly gives in-depth profiles of the benefits of particular ingredients and techniques. Sarah is a first line crusader of the healthy food movement, and her enthusiasm is genuine and inspiring. I have so much admiration for her - if I could choose anyone to be my personal chef, it would be Sarah B. Heck, I'd like to be her, full-stop.
I feel that if I knew Angela in real life, she would be a cool aunt, the kind you visit without warning, and not only is she delighted to see you she also just happened to have baked a fresh batch of delicious vegan cookies. Angela Liddon started a business making healthy muesli bars, Glo Bars, before becoming a full-time blogger and cookbook writer. With a bestselling cookbook rated 4.8/5 stars on Amazon, and with blog that boasts a huge list of awards, full of recipes that are also tested and rated by readers, her plant-based (and often gluten/soy/sugar free) recipes are reliable and her writing is a joy to read. Unlike many ‘health’ food bloggers, she seems so normal, and has replied to my comments despite having over 200,000 followers on Instagram. Respect.
A Sweet Spoonful - Megan Gordon is a baker whose recipes focus on whole grains and seasonal ingredients. She’s the queen of breakfasts - her cookbook is called ‘Whole-Grain Mornings: New Breakfast Recipes to Span the Seasons, and she runs a cereal business called Marge Granola.
Oh Lady Cakes - Ashlae is my spunky vegan soul sister. She bakes sweet treats, runs every morning, travels the world, and swears like a sailor. As well as recipes her blog is full of delicious slices of life, captured in her beautiful writing and photography, with a focus on interior decor and exotic travels.
My Darling Lemon Thyme - Emma is a kiwi mum living in Australia. After studying professional cookery and working for 8 years as a chef, she has written a cookbook and posts on her blog regularly, and her recipes are all vegetarian, gluten free and dairy free. I first encountered her recipes while visiting a friend in Wellington, who showed me Emma's cookbook and raved about it, and I can see why, having followed her blog ever since.
My Darling Lemon Thyme - Emma is a kiwi mum living in Australia. After studying professional cookery and working for 8 years as a chef, she has written a cookbook and posts on her blog regularly, and her recipes are all vegetarian, gluten free and dairy free. I first encountered her recipes while visiting a friend in Wellington, who showed me Emma's cookbook and raved about it, and I can see why, having followed her blog ever since.
Green Kitchen Stories - David and Luise have a couple of cookbooks and they recently travelled around New Zealand -while here they did a cooking demonstration at Little Bird.
Petite Kitchen - whole foods in New Zealand.
All of the above blogs create a pretty good overview of my food preferences. They share an unprocessed / plant-based/ whole-grain focus. They also have a shared 'comfort food' vibe, with lots of baking and hearty, cooked recipes. They're mostly from Europe and Canada. Many of the writers are parents. Almost all of them have published cookbooks, which is great since it usually means their recipes have been properly tested, too.
Note that weight and appearance aren't part of any of these above blogs. I think the joy and pleasure of food blogging becomes corrupted when weight loss is a focus, rather than health and wellbeing and sustainability and deliciousness. My biggest turn-off are bloggers that post a lot of photos of their bodies. My view is that weight loss should not be anyone’s primary goal: that’s treating the symptom, not the cause. The key is finding and maintaining a good life-long diet, and keeping at a healthy weight is just one benefit of that pursuit.
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So how about the other side of the coin. Which food blogs don't I like? (Besides Madeline Bourne…)
- Deliciously Ella: is about to release a cookbook even though she has only been cooking for a couple of years. This girl sends my alarm bells ringing because of her too-good-to-be-true story and all the marketing on her website.
- Chocolate Covered Katie: this girl seems really sweet - no pun intended - but I'm not a fan of her collection of recipes, primarily because of the blog's emphasis on low-calorie foods, and the use of dubious artificial sweeteners like xylitol. Her approach is about making 'healthy' versions of every type of processed candy under the sun by substituting every normal ingredient, implying (falsely) that a good diet is about replacing all your favourite treats with sub-standard healthy ones rather than just having them less often or not at all.
I also get peeved off by anything to do with the paleo diet. Although I agree with many of its philosophies, such as cutting out processed foods, I see this movement as the diet of the priveledged. It is ethically dilemmatic and environmentally unsustainable to consume large amounts of meat, as many paleo advocates do. If you think about it, a real 'paleo' diet wouldn't be bacon and eggs for breakfast and chicken for lunch and steak for dinner. It wouldn't include any meat grown on a farm at all: it would focus on more gamey types of meat and involve eating every last organ, not just the prime cuts.
Considering that paleolithic people ate whatever they found growing/living in their local environment, the paleo diet has an ironic dependence on specific exotic super foods (almonds, avocados, chia seeds, quinoa, coconuts…) with no regard to the significance of food miles. I'm not sold on that.
Finally, cutting out grains and legumes is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Rather than demonising carbohydrates and grains, I wish people would try using a variety of whole grains and sprouting them before cooking.
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But this brings me to another point that I'm fascinated by: the placebo of diet. We feel better by doing whatever we think / have read will make us feel better. There is enough research out there to skew and support whatever dietary viewpoint you choose.
For example, a hardcore vegan reads about a study showing that consuming animal products lead to sluggishness and various medical problems. They read that a vegan diet is more nutritious and leads to abundant energy. They will feel that their vitality comes from their vegan diet, and find other things to blame for any tiredness or sickness.
On the other hand, a paleo-dieter reads about a study that a high-carb diet leads to energy crashes, whereas a paleo, protein-heavy diet leads to health and abundant energy. They will attribute their vitality to cutting out grains, and find other things to blame for any tiredness or sickness.
Both diet philosophies are backed up by oceans of valid research… but which online circles you navigate and what information you choose to read creates self-fulfilling prophecies.
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This is the internet. Information is free. We’re all here to share.
And the most amazing thing about healthy food blogs is that there are JUST SO MANY OF THEM.
Why do so many people have food blogs? I think that healthy eating involves a lot of the ‘pink cloud syndrome’. It’s not enough just to have a healthy diet, you then want everyone to know how great it is, and feel the need to share it with the world.
I’m sure that up to a point, this is well-intended. If you think you have found the key to healthy living, you instinctively want to tell other people how and why to do the same. Which unfortunately leads to a lot of preachy, shameless self promotion from healthy-food-types. In this way food blogging becomes not so much a good-natured network of recipe sharing as a platform to show off one’s perfect diet (the way some use Facebook to show off their supposedly perfect social lives.)
It annoys me because it’s so unnecessary and it makes the world of healthy eating seem like a clique, a fashion, an exclusive privilege of the elite and attractive. In truth, all the information we need to eat healthy is totally accessible, and most of it just comes down to common sense and will power - which we all have, but it is often trumped by things like convenience, taste, habits, comfort. We don't need more time, we just need to slow down and think.
The secret is that there is no secret. And I think that’s the magic of healthy food. What’s healthiest for the planet is also what’s healthiest for us.
