STYLE & SUBSTANCE
The appetite for food porn, which now
comprises a significant proportion of
social media posts, is being stoked by
armies of behind-the-scenes personnel
charged with eliciting maximum desire.
When famous American food stylist
Denise Vivaldo visited Australia a couple
of years ago, a Sydney Morning Herald
review revealed food styling tricks
including soaking tampons in water
and microwaving them to create steam
in porridge or soup. Eyebrow pencil
was also used to give steak a charred
appearance while sour cream got a
helping hand from motor oil, which made
it extra dollopy. Even fruit and veg are
being made over in the quest to make us
want and eat (hairspray, apparently).
Viewers’ motivation to act on
cognitive responses to food porn is
largely personal, but it’s coaxed by
clever styling.
“Instead of food images looking
pristine, we are now more likely to show
the filling oozing out of apple pie where
a piece has been taken or the crumbs
on the table after someone just couldn’t
resist one of the muffins,” says food
stylist Fiona Rigg. “This heightens the
sense that what you are seeing is a real
food experience where people took the
time out to indulge and enjoy.” Trendy
ingredients and choice words penned
by a professional copywriter create
associations with origin, says food stylist
Janet Mitchell. When we use heirloom
vine-ripened tomatoes, Himalayan rocksalt or a Bulgarian feta in a recipe, we
feel like we’re more worldly. We also feel
we’ve briefly escaped from the mundane,
even if we’ve only travelled through
our tastebuds.”
The obvious hope is that people
will learn new cooking techniques and
engage in preparing more home-cooked
meals. Reality, however, suggests that
food porn is more likely to make us order
a brownie from Starbucks than cook
from scratch. “Unfortunately, the meals
offered in gourmet food magazines
and ‘how to’ cooking shows are not
always the healthiest options,” says
Nutrition Australia’s Aloysa Hourigan.
“They tend to be high in fat, salt and
sugar and are often quite complex to
prepare, which might give the unhelpful
message that cooking a meal is fiddly
and time consuming and you have to get
everything just right or the quality of the
food will be no good.” Instead, Hourigan
would like to see more programs teach
viewers how to make recipes healthier- whether by using a low salt soy sauce
and no palm sugar in Asian food or
substituting sour cream for yoghurt in a
creamy sauce.
Conversely, renewed appreciation
of food quality favours reduction in
processed food intake and increased
wholefood intake. “We are becoming
more aware of the food/health link, so
more people are seeking food free of
trans fats and colours and numbers,”
says Ratcliff.
You can also become desensitised to
certain foods in a similar way to drugs.
“Regular exposure to this trigger can
cause us to build tolerance so we need five
cookies not one to get the hit of satisfaction
we’re seeking,” Berrardi says.
Aside from food itself, environmental
factors can impact how we respond to
food according to research. Visual cues are
particularly potent.
Evidence shows that dim lighting
encourages a more relaxed attitude to
food by reducing self-consciousness about
how food choices may be perceived, in
turn reducing inhibitions. The way food is
displayed for sale is also inf luential. Cakes
displayed under glass cloches sell more than
those that are simply described in words
on a menu, research shows. Colour and
variety also factor according to University of
Pennsylvania marketing professor Barbara
Kahn. In a study, Kahn gave participants
bowls of M&Ms filled with 10 and seven
colours, respectively; the f lavours for each
colour were the same and there were 300
M&Ms in each bowl. After an hour, those
who had the bowl with 10 colours had
eaten 27 more M&Ms than those with only
seven colours.
The tricky thing about food cues is that
contrary to advice to visit the supermarket
straight after a meal, when susceptibility
to impulse buys is thought to be lowest,
food-related stimuli aren’t only dangerouswhen you’re hungry. People responded
strongly to food cues whether or not they
were expecting to eat soon, a University
of Liverpool study showed. Even images
of food conjure expectations and increase
salivation in the same way as Pavolv’s dog, in
which auditory cues were linked to food to
elicit salivation.LUST
LIST
With accredited pratising
dietitian Katie Dowling» THINK AHEAD Being in the moment
and believing that now is all there is
loses its lustre when you’re holding
a limited edition Kit Kat. The idea
that there is no next moment – and
therefore no consequence – can favour
what experts call ‘disinhibition’, where
the gravity of a behaviour at odds with
your goals suddenly seems harmless
enough. If you’re faced with temptation,
drag your mind off the decision to
an image of you later in the day or
tomorrow (‘prospection’). How will you
feel if you eat it? How will you feel if
you don’t? How do you want to feel?
Decision made.
» PRE-ORDER If you’re dining out,
dodge temptation that may be fanned
by hunger, peers and the tantalising
menu description by downloading the
menu and choosing your meal before
you leave. Either phone ahead and
pre-order or write your order down and
read it to the waiter.
» EAT DESSERT It is easier to train
yourself towards a food choice than
away from one – so choose to eat
a healthy food such as strawberries
instead of avoiding chocolate, as the
thought that you can’t eat chocolate
will place your attention on...chocolate.
» CURATE YOUR LUNCH DATES If you
know certain friends are overeaters, skip
catch-ups anchored by food and favour
an activity such as trampolining, the
movies or gym.