My family and I have been known to watch a show or two on the Food Network. My wife finds it inspirational. She loves to cook (and she’s quite good at it), and the shows on that channel often give her ideas she tries out on our family. So far be it from me to put any sort of kibosh on that kind of arrangement. The resulting dinners are far too yummy.
Me, I find it relaxing. After a day spent grappling with the ins and outs of our entertainment culture, I’m not terribly fond of going home and watching the likes of NCIS or Survivor or even the late-night talk shows before bed. I’m certainly not going to be watching The Family Guy. So a half hour or so of a predictable cupcake war or Iron Chef competition/demonstration or even that guy named Guy eating his way through a string of diners, drive-ins and dives can make me feel like I’m actually off the clock.
It was a bit jarring for me, then, to run across this ABC News story yesterday while assembling our weekly issue of Culture Clips:
We've long known that pornography can have a horrific impact on our innate sense of intimacy and sexual inclinations. Now experts say that so-called "food porn"—pictures of huge, succulent cinnamon rolls coated in frosting, for instance, or savory steaks nearly sizzling off magazine pages—can have a detrimental effect on us as well, especially with the likes of Pinterest and Flickr catering to the idea of posting such images. (Flickr's "Food Porn Group" has more than 600,000 images, making it one of the network's biggest.) "Like the sexual kind, food porn allows us to lust after taboo things," says Susan Albers, a psychologist and author of Eating Mindfully. "And now it's on our terms: We can search for exactly what turns us on, enlarge the images, and linger for as long as we want."
So are all those flashy pics of pancakes, pasta, pie, potatoes and parsnips on the Food Network hurting me while they’re relaxing me? Does glamorizing food amount to the same thing as, say, glamorizing violence in the movies?
How does this work for you? Do images of food serve as inspiration for you (like my bride)? Relaxation (like me)? Or as flat-out temptation, a trailhead to gluttony?
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