October 20, 2014

How Pinterest ruined my desire to bake



I used to bake a lot.  Cookies, bars, brownies, rice crispy treats, etc.  I understand that I've fallen out of this habit over the last year or so.  It was a hard habit to fall out of because I was so used to creating recipes and posting them here.  Eventually, with the time in Missouri, the move to Colorado, and the remodeling of a kitchen, I just gave up.

It's proven to be an even harder habit to fall back into though.  Once you stop doing something for awhile, picking it up again isn't easy.  It only takes 21 days to create a habit, they say.

Enter Pinterest.  I used to love it.  It was a wonderful time-waster and treasure trove of ideas and inspiration.  That's the same way I used to love food blogs.  Inspiration is what they gave me.  

However, Pinterest does this annoying thing where it follows people FOR you based on your previous pins or something, and so I end up looking at a million food pins.  What I've noticed is that food blogs have gone over the top these days.  Billions of ingredients in each recipe.  And these recipes either have completely unhealthy ingredients, like a soup with a stick of butter and cup of cream, or are on the vegan side of things, with hard-to-find ingredients.  While I prefer to fit more vegetables into my diet these days, I refuse to drive all over town looking for things when I know that I'm going to be too tired to make dinner most weeknights.  So I just stick to my standbys like sweet potatoes, quinoa, chicken salads, and so on during the week.  

And then there's the idea that more is more.  17 layers and 3 kinds of sugar?  That cookie must be much better than something classic and simple.  Or recipes with 3 different already-processed ingredients, such as pudding mix/cake mix/canned frosting?  Those kinds of desserts hold absolutely no appeal to me and that's all I'm seeing on Pinterest these days.  It seems like everyone is competing to have that next recipe post to go viral.  I realized long ago that none of mine ever would, so that might be when I stopped trying.  

I started posting recipes on this blog almost a year before I joined Pinterest.  I still joined Pinterest well before the general population and, let's face it, nothing is worse than the general population being on Pinterest. They tend to not know how to separate it from Facebook and all of a sudden you're scrolling through your newsfeed looking at Jell-O poke cakes and wondering what happened to your life.  And for the record, cooking chicken in a crockpot full of cream cheese and cream of mushroom soup is never a good idea.

In short, the inundation of over saturated photos,  the multitude of ingredients, and the "OMG SO GOOD" on blogs has ruined my desire to create in the kitchen because it's just too much.  Preparing food shouldn't be that complicated.

Do you have thoughts on this?

13 comments:

  1. Yea, you know I never thought about it like that, but Pinterest has been a bit much lately. I like searching for what I need but the old days of scrolling are annoying!

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  2. I've never had any desire to blog recipes, though I do have a favorite cookie recipe that I've never seen anyone but my family use so occasionally I feel like one of these days I ought to share it with someone. I don't tend to follow recipes too closely, I've always been a "substituter" so I'm never going to drive to a fancy store to get different ingredients, but I will take inspiration from recipes I see on blogs to make my own version. I just saw a recipe for slow-cooker chicken tikka masala that I now want to make without a slowcooker and without a couple of the spices...I'm sure it'll be just fine...

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  3. 1) The "follow people for me" thing. NO! NO NO NO! Pinterest, I FOLLOW WHO I WANT. STOP DOING STUFF FOR ME! 2) I don't look at food on pinterest anymore. It pisses me off quite frankly. I hate seeing the word "HEALTHY XYZ" only to find the FIST INGREDIENT is 3 sticks of butter. Like, really? 3) I've also found that baking from pinterest is too freaking complicated. I like a GOOD (read: tasty) basic dessert with a twist. Doesn't have to be a gazillion ingredients or take 4 days to make it.

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  4. I noticed that new thing on Pinterest with the new pins you aren't following, but I just found out you can go into your settings and select to only see your pinners' pins. I followed people for a reason, and that's what I want to see!

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  5. Yes! I always wondered why there were pins from people I didn't know on my "following" page. Thanks for enlightening me. And I'm like you, I want recipes with easy-to-find ingredients. And, yes, healthy is good too, but I don't want to spend a fortune or drive to every store in town to find that one weird ingredient.

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  6. I hate that they have other people's pins! I still use Pinterest to save things I find online and sometimes it is a good distraction during middle o the night nursing sessions

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  7. I agree. Pinterest has gotten really ridiculous in the last year or so, to the point where I really only hop on there to find recipes (using very specific searches) or yarn patterns. Sometimes I'll browse the humor page, but I have to be REALLY bored. Gone are the days when you could get on and waste hours and not even realize it.

    My pet peeve is when people pin an image that leads nowhere. Like...that's a nice photograph of that delicious looking dinner, too bad there's no recipe or even a website linked to it.

    I also unfollowed all but 4 people. You, my sister, my mom, and one other friend. It helps cut down on the clog issue a little bit, and I've noticed that Pinterest doesn't really post recommended pins for me anymore, which is nice.

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  8. I think Pinterest and blogs have fostered a really unhealthy competitive environment where people have to WIN at everything. Like baking. Or holidays (because the magic of Santa/reindeer isn't enough, let's leave powdered sugar footprints through the house!). Or even something as mundane as planners. My quirky ancient Christmas cookies are always eaten before the obvious Pinterest-inspired ones, anyway.

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  9. I don't even remember the last time I was on pinterest.

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  10. I use Pinterest primarily to store my recipes for me. I typically will pin on my own more than re-pin.

    If there are too many steps or ingredients (unless it's a many ingredient soup, which is typically just all in), it gets relegated to a "maybe on the weekend" recipe, and let's be honest, there aren't a zillion weekends.

    Baking must be simple or I simply will not do it. I don't have the patience or desire. These rainbow looking cakes? NO.

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  11. Yeah, Pinterest is way over the top and overwhelming. I finally joined last spring to get teaching ideas. It's exactly as I was afraid it would be- a black hole of time-wasting crap. That being said, don't quit posting recipes! That's how I found your blog in the first place. I'm all about easy food and the simplicity of your stuff is great!

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  12. Yes! I am tired of looking at pins that I am not interested in. I pinned a dog treat recipe lately, and now dog stuff is all over the home page. If I need more dog treats, I will search for it.

    I like classic desserts and simple recipes for my family. With two small girls, I can't spend all day in the kitchen so I need quick and tasty meals.

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  13. I totally understand this. My Pinterest feed is overflowing with teaching pins...most of which are no longer relevant to the grade I teach! I have been wondering why I was seeing so many pins from people I didn't follow! I gave up on my home feed and just look at "Popular" pins when I'm in the mood to explore. There's usually a great variety of stuff on there.

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