Foodstagramming: why we're compelled to Instagram our food

When, in 1827, French inventor Nicéphore Niépce photographed a table set with a bowl, a wine bottle and a hunk of bread, he could not have imagined the precedent he was setting.

In taking the world's first still-life picture of food, Niépce was foreshadowing one of this century's most curious phenomena.

A recent UK report revealed that during the space of a month, one in five adults posted a picture of his or her food on social media, or sent a shot to a friend. (This rises to a third among 18- to 24-year-olds.)

The food industry is taking note. According to industry insiders, some restaurants are now deliberately including one eminently Facebook-able dish on their menus.

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At the same time, certain restaurants in the US and France have banned customers from taking pictures of their dishes, or "foodstagramming", as it has become known.

Patrons at Heston Blumenthal's restaurant Dinner have been asked to refrain from using flashes when snapping their food.

So what's the most foodstagrammed meal? On the basis of its global hashtag popularity, it is pizza, followed by sushi and chicken. When tastes are broken down on a city-by-city basis, London comes out as the most popular place for foodstagramming burgers and pulled pork, while the lion's share of curry photos are taken in Tokyo.

New York is top for bacon, empanadas, chicken, pizza, sushi and bao buns, while almost 9% of burrito photos are taken in Los Angeles. To delve deeper, tap #food into Instagram and there are 192 million pictures to work your way through.

Whatever the geographic quirks, the trend looks here to stay.

But why do we feel compelled to take photographs of our food in the first place? There's a "coarse logic" explanation, which can be described as the Everest principle: we take pictures of our food because we can.

At least twice a day, we sit with a plateful of food and, more often than not, a smartphone, with its powerful camera and dozens of fancy filters. The impulse to record the everydayness of one's meal is perhaps no different to that which compelled Monsieur Niépce some 190 years ago.

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However, this new study makes clear, the main element in our obsession with sharing is that we are proud foodies. Four in ten of the 2,000 respondents said they take greater care over the presentation of their food than they did five years ago.

When asked why, the majority said that good presentation makes them feel better and enjoy the food more. And sharing pictures with others is a corollary of this.

The logic goes: cook a nice dish, feel good about yourself, share it with others on social media, watch the "likes" flood in and feel even better. You can argue about what this says about the times we live in, but equally you could argue that by posting images on social media people are creating an uplifting virtual sharing economy.

In a US study last year, researchers divided diners at a Philadelphia farmers' market into two groups, asking one group to take photographs as they ate and the other to eat as they would normally.

Surveyed afterwards, diners who took pictures were found to have enjoyed the meal significantly more, and felt far more immersed in the experience, than those who did not.

Therefore, we should celebrate this curious foodstagramming craze. Anything that makes this unsavoury world taste a little better should be embraced. Just take the shot before your food gets cold. — The Daily Telegraph, London

sub_head_start THE TOP 10 MOST INSTAGRAMMED FOODS sub_head_end

1) Pizza

2) Sushi

3) Chicken

4) Salad

5) Pasta

6) Bacon

7) Burger

8) Eggs

9) Steak

10) Salmon

— Hashtag survey by Sous Vide Tools