You know what is scary? Scary is the 70+million following Tasty’s page on Facebook has, f’ng scary. Without fail, one of the Tasty videos infect my newsfeed every couple of days with those mindless yet cathartic, high speed, thirty second autoplay scenes of canned beans, processed yellow cheese or mayonnaise (sometimes all three at the same time) coming together to form some sort of vile frankenfood.
At first I was mesmerized by the videos, I couldn’t stop watching. And then I started paying more attention only to realize they are a serious public disservice. What’s worse is that people share the videos or tag their friends in the comments section proclaiming they absolutely need to “cook” this for Saturday night’s get together. Shudder. No wonder obesity and disease rates are high.
The Truth Behind Buzzfeed’s Tasty Videos
You’ll notice a recurring theme if you take a few minutes to examine the Tasty videos page. First theme is a rotation of the same ingredients in different forms. Shredded cheese, ranch dressing or mayonnaise, oil for frying, a heavy carb. To me everything just started looking like the same recipe. It was some form of chicken stuffed with cheese and then fried.
A second theme is that if the Tasty video prompts you to add an “exotic” spice i.e. a teaspoon of cumin seeds, suddenly the dish becomes a specialty of Mexican or Indian cuisine. As someone who loves cooking Indian food, its laughable and offensive. I’m guessing the French and Italians think the videos are an abomination.
The third theme is God forbid a vegetable exists somewhere in the recipe, it’s disguised with a accompaniment of bacon, cheese or a high caloric, creamy dressing.
The fourth theme is that they never show the people behind the recipes. You know why? My guess is that they look really unhealthy. And if you start making these recipes often, that’s probably what you’ll look like soon. I’m no skinny mini by any standard but I know if I ate this “food”, I’d be in the doctor’s office getting treated for diabetes and high cholesterol.
Want some real recipes? Click on my Recipe page. It’s scant but I’m working on filling it up. The article on Whole30 is worth a read.
Do you guys think this Tasty video is even remotely appealing?!
