<story><title>How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/technology/how-buzzfeeds-tasty-conquered-online-food.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vanderZwan</author><text>Whenever I see any gif with a recipe come by on my social media, it always seems to follow the same meta-recipe: hyperpalatable ingredient mixed with other hyperpalatable ingredient, the end result being something that has fat, sugar and salt in abundance.&lt;p&gt;I guess that it makes sense, producing the clickbait equivalent for taste (you watch it and think &amp;quot;oh that looks mouthwatering&amp;quot;) but I don&amp;#x27;t recall ever watching these and thinking they look &lt;i&gt;healthy&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: To clarify, I am specifically referring to adding a lot more sugar, salt and fat than we need; I do realise a lot of these recipes use vegetables, have plenty of fibres and essential nutrients, and so on, but hyperprocessed foods that lack those qualities is a different kind of unhealthy than what I&amp;#x27;m talking about.&lt;p&gt;For the record, I never actively look online for recipes on any of these sites, so maybe that is also the reason I only see these recipes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lobster_johnson</author><text>They&amp;#x27;ve got lots of fairly healthy recipes (as well as plenty of unhealthy ones, but nobody is pretending that brownies are healthy).&lt;p&gt;The problem isn&amp;#x27;t the nutritional content, it&amp;#x27;s that these videos are of recipes that just aren&amp;#x27;t very good to start with. They&amp;#x27;ve nailed the ability to shoot something that looks incredibly tasty, but if you look at the recipes themselves, they lack flavour. Nothing has enough spices added, nothing is allowed to cook long enough, etc. Complexity and culinary sophistication is thrown out the window to make food-making look enticingly, deceptively simple and quick. They&amp;#x27;re not &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; bad, of course. You can sometimes make a good meal out of four ingredients.&lt;p&gt;In other words: The videos are designed to be addictive to watch, not to be realistic recipes.</text></comment>
<story><title>How BuzzFeed’s Tasty Conquered Online Food</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/technology/how-buzzfeeds-tasty-conquered-online-food.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vanderZwan</author><text>Whenever I see any gif with a recipe come by on my social media, it always seems to follow the same meta-recipe: hyperpalatable ingredient mixed with other hyperpalatable ingredient, the end result being something that has fat, sugar and salt in abundance.&lt;p&gt;I guess that it makes sense, producing the clickbait equivalent for taste (you watch it and think &amp;quot;oh that looks mouthwatering&amp;quot;) but I don&amp;#x27;t recall ever watching these and thinking they look &lt;i&gt;healthy&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;EDIT: To clarify, I am specifically referring to adding a lot more sugar, salt and fat than we need; I do realise a lot of these recipes use vegetables, have plenty of fibres and essential nutrients, and so on, but hyperprocessed foods that lack those qualities is a different kind of unhealthy than what I&amp;#x27;m talking about.&lt;p&gt;For the record, I never actively look online for recipes on any of these sites, so maybe that is also the reason I only see these recipes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>artursapek</author><text>Lowest common denominator. It&amp;#x27;s why they&amp;#x27;re so popular.</text></comment>