Overcooked?

It seems that our fascination with food, celebrities and reality TV knows no bounds. Or limits.

Of all the food shows on the box today how much content actually relates to creating the food we crave to cook? My guess is 50%, or less.

We seem more fascinated with Nigella Lawson’s fingerlickin’ finger licks and Gordon Ramsey’s f*cks (on and off the screen).

We’ve gorged on this feast of frivolity and we’re getting a little sick of it.

It’s time to get back to basic ingredients. I believe that foodie blogs have exploded in popularity because there is a genuine appetite for real food by real people. A good example is Niamh Shields, from eatlikeagirl.com who ranks in the UK Times Top 10 food blogs from around the world.

The guys from Lookandtaste.com know the current model is broken so they’ve been getting busy creating their own one.

What’s broken?

• TV Celebrity Chefs are a commodity - there’s too many doing too little
• The bedrock for producing these programs, TV advertising, will only go down in revenue terms.
• In short, it’s dead.

The Lookandtaste model: Old content never dies

The true value which the guys from LookandTaste.com have uncovered is that the content they’re producing can provide value long after publishing. Sure, soufflés may have gone out with the 80’s but a recipe can live forever in internet terms. I’ll want to poach an egg and, in a couple of years, my kids will too.

It’s the medium, not the message

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a moving picture must be worth a million.

With their short, personable videos, Lookandtaste.com recipes are concise consumable nuggets easily played then paused and replayed. While TV companies clamber to sell us HD, Food channels and on-demand programmes - all they’re doing is regurgitating up the same slop.

It’s time to change the channel.

Turn off, Eat in and log on to lookandtaste.com.