April 20, 2015
Click. Drool. Repeat.
That's the tagline for FoodPornDaily.com, a site dedicated to providing visitors with mouthwatering photos of nourishment.
There's a term for those carefully arranged photos of deliciousness — "food porn."
The concept isn't new. The term "food porn" was first used in feminist writer Rosalind Coward's 1984 book "Female Desire," in which she wrote, "That we should aspire to produce perfectly finished and presented food is a symbol of a willing and enjoyable participation in servicing others. Food pornography exactly sustains these meanings relating to the preparation of food."
Food porn began to take on its current meaning in the early 2000s as more people started posting photos of their meals on social media. You're probably guilty of it, too. The photo-sharing website Flickr launched a “Food Porn” category in September 2004 and now features around three-quarters of a million photos.
— Food Porn Daily (@itsFoodPornnn) February 20, 2015
— Food Porn Daily (@itsFoodPornnn) March 7, 2015
Getting hungry? Sorry about that.
So what exactly does food porn do to a viewer's brain when all they can do is look?
Some research suggests that just seeing images of food can trigger desire, while other research argues that food porn may act as a substitute for the real thing, The Atlantic reports.
The chef’s maxim that people first eat with their eyes is backed both by common sense — food stylists exist for a reason, and a glistening grill-marked burger that oozes cheese is an easier sell than a limp, gray one — and by science. A 2012 study published in the journal Physiology and Behavior, for example, found that seemingly minute details about a dish’s appearance, like “gloss, evenness, and shape,” can alter how diners perceive its taste and smell.
Theories about why people take so much pleasure in sharing their food porn images also vary.
Read more from The Atlantic.
