Does Our Food Have to Be Aesthetic to Be Valuable?: A Journey Into Food Optics

When Meals Became Media: The Rise of Food Optics and the Tyranny of Pretty

There was a time when meals were just…meals. A bowl of fruit. A plate of rice. A simple, quiet moment to nourish. But somewhere between the first hashtagged post and the latest trending reel, something shifted. Meals became media. Nourishment became "what I eat in a day".

We’ve watched the rise of food optics: rainbow smoothie bowls with a digestion disaster for toppings, vegan biscoff ice cream sandwich stacks staged under perfect light, and edible flowers arranged with surgical precision. It’s everywhere now—designed more to be seen than be felt.

And in the process, the basics began to feel like a letdown. Not to our bodies—but to our feeds.

We’ve participate(d) in it too. We know what it’s like to dress up a meal for the camera, to pause before eating to get the right angle, as you get the twinge of is this enough? before the first bite even reaches your lips.

But lately, that question has started to sound different. Not “Is this enough to post?”

Just: “Is this the best fuel for me?”

The culture of food optics hasn't just distorted what food should look like—it's distorted what food is for. And while the aesthetic game might look harmless on the surface, it’s quietly pushing us further away from ourselves, our needs, and sustainability.

Because when elitist beauty becomes the benchmark, simplicity starts to look like failure.

We Still Want Our Food to Perform—Just Not for the Feed

We’re not against performance. Let’s make that clear.

We want our food to perform—for our digestion, our energy, our focus, our mood. We want it to show up for us. To stabilize us. To help us repair, move, think, and recover. Performance is part of nourishment. But somewhere along the line, that word got hijacked.

Now it means aesthetic delivery. Camera-ready. Content-forward.

And yet, most of the meals that actually work for us don’t get filmed. There’s no overhead ring light when we sip watermelon juice at 7AM. No slow-motion capture when we break a fast with pineapple core or sit down with rice, steamed broccoli, and homemade ponzu. These meals aren’t here to impress. They’re here to deliver vitality. True sustenance.

That’s the shift: We still want food that performs—but, even if you see our offerings, the feed is no longer the stage. It's a place for us to share what's working in a fun way.

If you’re in this world as a creator, you’ve probably felt it too. That blurry moment where intention starts to crumble under the weight of algorithmic expectations. That sense that even when you're doing it right, it doesn’t feel like enough unless it’s beautiful.

But what if we redefined success? What if it were internal?

Less “Did this get saved?”

More “Did this sustain me?”

We still create. But now we create from a different place. Where value is in lived outcomes.

The Cost of Pretty: FOMO, Comparison, and the Quiet Harm of Optics Culture

The problem with aesthetic food culture isn’t just what it shows. It’s what it throws out.

It hides the real rhythm of nourishment. The imperfect bowls. The overripe but eaten bananas. The days when you eat the same thing three times in a row because your body loves it. It hides repetition, ripeness, satiety, and sovereignty. And instead, it serves you contrast, novelty, and curation.

And over time, something subtle happens:

You stop trusting your plate.

You start questioning enough.

You wonder if your “yes” is supposed to look different.

That’s the quiet harm of food FOMO. It doesn’t scream—it simmers. It tells you you’re off, even when you’re on. It keeps you chasing a look instead of landing in your life. And even if you're not in it for looks, gratitude for a perfectly good meal can escape you.

The irony? Some of the most “beautiful” meals on the internet are metabolically damaging. Packed with poorly combined ingredients, heavy on nut butters and frozen treats, low on hydration or fiber, or functionality. But they look good. And that keeps the loop going.

Here’s what we’ve learned: Just because it’s beautiful doesn’t mean it’s aligned.

And just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it’s lacking.

In fact, many of the meals that look boring are the ones that save people. The all-banana lunch. The bowl of steamed squash and rice. The watermelon mono morning. They don’t steal the show—but they heal the body.

Setting The Table For Simplicity: Not Settling

In a culture chasing extremes—“What I eat in a day” reels packed with 17 steps and seven superfoods—there’s something radical about keeping it simple. Not as an aesthetic, but as a method. A way to align. A way to feel what’s possible.

Because simplicity isn’t a lack of creativity. It’s the absence of confusion.

When your breakfast is a mango mono meal, or your dinner is rice, steamed veg, and a quick homemade sauce, you’re not downgrading—you’re tuning in. You’re giving your body a clear message. You’re allowing digestion to lead. And you’re proving that nutrition doesn’t have to be eye-catching to be effective.

We’ve had clients heal the most by doing the least.

Not under-eating. Not restricting. Just simplifying.

Food that isn’t busy often supports a body that’s been overwhelmed.

And food that doesn’t have to perform for views gives you the space to notice your own needs.

Still, this kind of eating rarely gets reposted.

There’s no crunch shot. No drizzle. No garnish.

Just nourishment. Straight up.

And maybe that’s the point. Simplicity doesn’t sell. But it sustains.

Here’s the truth we can’t avoid:

Ugly food is often more available. But it’s rarely more valued.

Aesthetic food culture doesn’t just distort nourishment—it gatekeeps it. It rewards those who have time, tools, resources, and access. It turns food into a class performance, where the lighting matters more than the ripeness, and the garnish matters more than the gut.

And we get it. We’ve arranged the shot. We’ve had the surplus to make something beautiful. But that doesn’t mean it was better.

Sometimes, the most nourishing meal is a bruised banana.

Or three small mangoes that didn’t make the store’s “display” cut.

Or a sack of imperfect produce that costs less because it’s real.

We talk a lot about food freedom.

But how free is it if it still needs to look a certain way to be “valid”?

This isn’t about guilt. It’s about awareness.

Being able to call a simple meal "mid" or "basic" is a luxury.

Because for many, it’s not ugly. It’s lunch. It’s dinner.

And for far too many, it’s simply survival.

When aesthetic becomes the standard, nourishment becomes a performance.

And performance, more often than not, belongs to the privileged.

Let’s Talk About Privilege: Aestheticism as a Quiet Class Marker

The longer you do this—the longer you eat with intention, simplify your rhythm, listen to your body—the clearer it becomes:

Nourishment rarely looks like content.

It looks like peace. Like steadiness. Like rhythms.

It looks like bowls that don’t match, fruit that’s bruised, sauces made in minutes, meals that don’t ask to be admired.

It looks like your body responding with clarity.

It feels like not second-guessing your plate.

And once you’ve felt that, it’s hard to go back to anything that performs for someone else.

You realize: your food doesn’t have to entertain. Not even you.

It doesn’t have to trend.

It doesn’t have to be seen by anyone else to be enough for you.

This is our invitation—To normalize simplicity.

To elevate the meals that heal.

To reclaim the rhythms that work, even if they’re not aesthetic.

Especially because they’re not. We still love beauty. We still believe in intention.

But we no longer believe that food has to look feed-worthy to be valuable.

Sometimes it’s the “ugly” food that frees you.

That feeds you. That brings you back to yourself.

See for yourself.

The beauty’s already there.