Food porn — the practice of posting delectable dishes on the Internet — tends to lean toward the fat-laden and sugary sweet treats that we find most irresistible. But Bolthouse Farms is looking to swing the balance toward healthy food art by showcasing the disparity between healthy and unhealthy food posts on its new Food Porn Index site.
“The idea behind The Food Porn Index was to shine a light on the imbalance between how much we talk about unhealthy versus healthy food online and start a discussion about how the constant stream of overwhelmingly unhealthy foods may be impacting our diets,” said Todd Putman, Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer for Bolthouse Farms.
The Index is hosted on a vibrant, colorful website that features interactive images of some of the most popular junk foods juxtaposed with healthy food icons. The point of the site is to track the number of social media mentions of various foods through hashtags, such as #carrot or #pizza. Bolthouse said the Index trolls Twitter and Instagram feeds and updates every 15 minutes.
When visitors enter the site, they’re greeted with the most up-to-date information on the “food porn war.” As of the morning of March 14, the Index has catalogued 201.8 million food mentions, and it appears healthy choices are still the underdog in the battle — 70.7 percent to 29.3 percent to be exact. The site encourages visitors to fight for nutritious eats by posting more fruits and vegetables using the #FoodPorn hashtag.
(Photo: www.foodpornindex.com)
In addition to keeping tabs on healthy and unhealthy food porn, the Index also offers a number of interactive features. Visitors can click on any of the food icons — including both produce and junk food — to play a number of games. Users can lay down a healthy beat in a game of “Beet Box,” or get hypnotized by a spiral of sprinkles in “Donut Zoom.”
Bolthouse’s Twitter feed is doing its own part to make fruits and veggies sexy, posting tweets, such as, “Sultry sweet potato.. a shapely green pepper.. fruits & veggies never looked so good.”
While the Food Porn Index is part of a marketing campaign for Bolthouse — which processes carrots, as well as healthy smoothies and salad dressings — it does highlight the current state of the “foodieverse.” Clearly, despite the fact that consumers have an increasing awareness of health and nutrition, they aren’t necessarily eating better-for-you choices — and they certainly aren’t dreaming about them on Twitter.
Putman hopes the Food Porn Index can foster more discussion about nutrition and make eating healthy fun.
He said, “Social media channels make consumers incredibly powerful markets for the brands and ideas they love. By uncovering the impact of our collective conversation about food, we hope to inspire more conscious food posts.”
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