Why Food?

When I decided to start a blog, I thought I wanted it to have a theme. I thought about the fact that my main goal and the thing I'm most excited about in life is being a mom one day, so I made that my title. However, my daily (ok, let's be honest... more like weekly) posts had to be about my life in general because how much can I really write about motherhood since I have, you know, zero experience. 

I find, then, that I like to write about food. While looking through other blogs, I find that most other people like to write about food as well. In fact, in my very little although extremely enjoyable research, I've found that the 3 most popular blog topics are food, exercise, and fashion. Why these? I mean, people could write about relationships, their jobs, their childhoods, their nightly hygiene rituals... pretty much anything. I think people like to write about food for the same reasons we write about exercise and fashion; creativity, sense of accomplishments, and solidarity. 

Creativity - Food is endlessly creative. There are an uncountable number of different possible combinations of all the ingredients that the world has to offer. For example, check out my OIAJ (Oatmeal in a {peanut butter} jar) that I had for breakfast yesterday. The OIAJ idea was stolen from Emma at www.sweettoothrunner.com, but the idea to eat it overlooking the ocean on my deck was my own. Just looking at all the blogs about cupcake decorating... I mean it could take YEARS to try out all the creative recipes for both the actual cupcakes and the decorations. It is inspiring and exciting.

Sense of Accomplishment - Like running and fashion, there is a sense of accomplishment with food when you find the PERFECT recipe or you finally find a way to make a vegetable dish that the whole family enjoys. Most people that I read about try to stay healthy, so it can be so rewarding to upload pictures of healthy recipes and feel proud that you ate so well that day. Also, making the food look good enough to photograph is an accomplishment on its own, although I am still working on this aspect. I think that when you make a really good meal, snack, or dessert that you are proud of, you want to share it with others. So, people make food blogs to share all their triumphs (and sometimes failures) on their blog as a way to show others and themselves what they have accomplished.

Solidarity - Food is the one thing that literally every single human being has in common. Yea, we may wish that all people also had a desire to exercise (hello, rising obesity rate!) and a need for good fashion, but that is unfortunately not always the case. Food brings families and friends together, and for many people it is more of a hobby and a passion than a necessity. For example, I've written posts about my late-night eating habits and my love for yogurts and berries. While I've also written posts about life struggles as I leave college and about deciding what to do with my life, I tend to get the most comments about food posts because EVERYONE can relate in some way or another. Whether you hate yogurt and berries (HOW DO YOU LIVE?!) or you love them, you have an opinion because food matters to everyone. 

I'm not saying that from here this blog will be only about food, but it is interesting to notice what gets people talking. I learned in a class one year that one of the most innate human needs is the need to belong. So, if people want to belong and people need food... obviously the food-blogging community is going to be a fast-growing one that is helpful to individuals who are bored of their eating habits but also helpful to society as a way to make people bond over something that is all-inclusive as long as you are a hungry human.

Why do you like writing about food (or fashion or exercise)?

xo

Toni