The Foodie Backlash Is Upon Us

Journalist Dylan Matthews hates the role food plays in his life and in society today.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In her latest music video, pop star Katy Perry is doused in flour, kneaded like dough, draped with chopped vegetables, and stirred into a pot of bubbling liquid by a team of young, attractive male cooks. At one point, celebrity chef Roy Choi of socially minded fast-food joint Loco’l tastes her and purses his lips in satisfaction. Whether you fall for Perry’s “Bon Appétitvideo or find it unappetizing, there’s no denying that it targets a huge demographic: today’s restaurant-obsessed, foodporn-sharing, cooking-show binging millennials.

According to a survey by data analytics firm YPulse, 46 percent of 25- to 33-year-olds consider themselves “foodies.” A quick look at Instagram erases any doubt: There are currently over 57 million posts tagged with #foodie, 122 million with #foodporn. And millennials appear to be passing this obsession down to younger generations: A study by investment bank Piper Jaffray found that teens now spend more money on food than they do on clothing.

But not everyone spends their free time choosing filters for close-ups of lemon cream pie or sending Snapchats of their activated charcoal lattes. Political junkie Dylan Matthews, 27, who helped found Vox, lives and works in Washington, DC, a city enjoying quite the food renaissance. And yet Matthews, who joined us on our latest episode of our food politics podcast Bite, says he’s just not that into food. “I hate that food occupies the role it does in my life, and in society at large,” he once wrote.

“I eat to survive,” he tells co-host Tom Philpott. “I actively loathe cooking.” Matthews guesses his aversion may stem in part from his upbringing, which had a “pretty utilitarian view of food. I think if I grew up in a household where food was more of a cultural component, it may have been different,” he said. He also says he’s on the autism spectrum and “there are certain textures that I just sort of reject.”

Dylan Matthews Vox.com

At one point in 2015, Matthews tried Soylent, Silicon Valley’s much-hyped meal replacement drink. Matthews thought it was going to solve all his problems—until he decided it was too hard to make and required too much planning, because once mixed, it only lasts 48 hours. (The current version of Soylent comes already mixed in individual bottles—Matthews says he drinks it for dinner from time to time.)

When Matthews does have to appease foodie friends or colleagues, he turns to certain restaurants. Here’s his list of DC eateries for people who aren’t that into eating:

  • Little Sesame Hummus Shop, 18th Street NW. “It’s connected to a fancier restaurant so it’s got great seating and I’ll have lunch with a lot of sources there.”
  • Keren, an Eritrean restaurant on Florida Avenue NW.  “It’s very inexpensive, and nice, and a really great sit-down place.”
  • DuPont Market, 18th and S Street. “A great little bodega with a great sandwich counter. If you like meat, they have an amazing Italian sandwich with salami, prosciutto, and pepperoni. I like their hummus and feta and avocado sandwich.” (Which smells suspiciously like a foodie recommendation to us).

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate