If the saying you eat with your eyes is true, I’ve eaten breakfast even before I’m fully awake.
It begins every morning at 6.30, when I crack one eye open to scroll through my Instagram feed, to get my fix of beautiful cupcake pictures, and cat pictures — and if I’m lucky, cats eating cupcakes. Instagram, which started out in 2010, is now instrumental in creating and shaping food trends all over the world. Here are some trends that you need to be aware of in order to be Instagram-savvy.
Avocados
If there’s a single fruit that is synonymous with the millennial lifestyle, it is avocado. Chopped, sliced, mashed, and whipped; if you aren’t seeing at least one avocado picture for every five you scroll through, you’re not doing it right.
Recently, Australian real estate mogul, Tim Gurner, made a comment that millennials would have money to buy a home, if they’d perhaps stop eating so much avocado toast. Which is silly, because how does one become a social media influencer and earn the big bucks if you don’t post pictures of avo toast?
Avocados appear in many avatars on Instagram: there’s the one with slices that are arranged concentrically like the petals of a rose on toast, and more recently, the pixel avocado, where the fruit is chopped so finely, it looks like a pixelated photograph of an avocado. By Instagram standards, that’s pretty deep. The trend was started by Chef Kylie Millar from Melbourne, Australia, and now every time you see a picture of a fruit and reach for your glasses because it looks a bit blurry, you know who to thank.
Doughnuts
It started with pastel-coloured doughnuts, mostly from hipster bakeries in Brooklyn. Since then, however, doughnuts have captured the imagination of Instagram-wielding millennials the world over. There was the rainbow doughnut that came after — more like a disc of play dough than anything you’d actually want to eat, they made for perfect pictures, however — stripes of bright, neon colours that swirl into the empty centre.
The galaxy doughnut is having its moment in the sun (excuse the pun) right now — in hues of dark blue and purple, flecked with white, it is a testament to the power of the millennial that the third item that appears in Google search when you type in the word galaxy, is the galaxy doughnut.
Succulent cakes and cupcakes
Anyone who has ever had even a quick glance through Instagram will know that just as doughnuts and cupcakes are pet favourites of the food world, succulents are the pet project of lifestyle Instagrammers. Some clever cookie decided to capture both markets by creating the succulent cake. These cakes, look like mini terrariums placed on top of an iced cake, in neutral, typical Instagram colours — creams, gold, and dark green. I must admit, that of all the trends out there, this is the one that has me sighing with delight each time I come across one. Piped with butter cream, the level of detail and precision is astounding.
Freak shakes
Although this dessert is suspiciously in line with the American culinary ethos of there is no such thing as too much of a good thing, we actually have the Aussies to thank for this one. A milkshake that is topped with cream, followed by cake and various sauces such as chocolate and strawberry, as well as whatever else will balance precariously on it — like pretzels, a piece of chocolate, or even your dignity. What baffles me though, is why this trend is so popular on Instagram — is it because ugly food is the next big thing?
Rainbow everything
Like a horror movie that keeps coming out with a sequel worse than the previous, the rainbow trend is the gift that keeps on giving, surprising us with another hideously coloured food trend, just when we thought it couldn’t get worse. It started out with the rainbow cakes and cupcakes. Rainbow-coloured pancakes and waffles were not far behind.
At this moment, however, it is the mermaid toast and unicorn latte that are taking us into our magical, technicoloured future. Adeline Waugh is the food stylist who came up with the mermaid toast — with ripples of pastel greens, blues and pinks, she uses natural dyes to colour cream cheese which is then smeared on toast in swirls that mimic waves. As a final flourish — a sprinkling of edible gold.
The most popular trend right now, however, is the unicorn latte. It started out as a health drink made from dates, coconut milk and ginger, with spirulina lending a blue colour. However, the health benefits of the sugary Starbucks version are quite suspect. It does, however, make for a pretty picture.
