Let’s be honest: there are a million food bloggers on the internet just grasping for a moment of fame. They have cool pictures, diverse recipes, and a profile that is to die for--but is their food even that good? How can we filter out the good from the bad? Is it all just a system of trial and error? The real question is are they making these recipes and sharing pictures of their food to bring delicious meals to people’s tables? Or are they promoting themselves for money? I set out onto Instagram to find two food bloggers who had a substantial amount of followers and a top notch aesthetic; and through bougie In-And-Out Burgers and questionable birthday “cake” cookies, I was able to find my answer. 

First on my food bloggers list was Carissa Stanton (@broccyourbody). She is a 27-year-old California native who has been a social media food blogger for years. She has an Instagram page and an established website filled with thousands of recipes ranging from uber healthy to “downright naughty”. So can we trust her? 

Her credibility is great. By the numerous mentions she makes on her website about her Kinesiology degree and her two e-books, you can see she's really trying to appeal to your ethos (you’re welcome Mr. O'Shea). But do we truly care about why food bloggers became food bloggers? Not really. One major factor to consider is that Carissa’s sister is Amanda Stanton (and I can’t even believe I have to clarify but for those who don’t know her she was on Ben’s season of the Bachelor and on Bachelor in Paradise twice). Is the reason she has that many followers because she has truly good recipes or because she has a famous sister? (tea). 

Carissa had the food pics and the aesthetic, but most surprisingly there were no annoying “#Ad”s about products she uses. Now the only thing left to do was make sure that this girl was trustworthy (aka, LEGIT). I had to try one of her recipes. I scrolled through about a thousand posts looking for the perfect meal that would both taste good and be relatively easy to make, so my mom wouldn't cut me when I told her how many things she would have to buy (thank you Dawn). I finally settled on an In and Out Burger animal style with cheese and no bun. Did I only realize after the fact that I have nothing to compare this burger to as I live on the east coast and have never had In and Out? Yes. My B. But I can tell when a burger is a good burger so that’s really all that matters at this point.

I was essentially looking for something to spice up my burgers since my mom makes them so much, and I’m really glad I found this recipe because ketchup just wasn’t doing it for me anymore. It was really easy and the steps were super short and to the point. All the meal consisted of was a burger and whatever fries you had in the fridge or freezer. The only real “recipe” was the sauce. It called for mayo, relish, ketchup, white vinegar, coconut sugar (or regular), and salt. The whole dinner took about 20 minutes to make (the sauce only five) and was actually quite tasty. That being said, was it the best burger sauce I’ve had? No. But was it good? Yea. The thing I liked most was how fast it was. For the average person you don’t want to be spending three hours slaving over a meal on a Monday night (@Sirenna’s cookies, but we’ll get to that later). Carissa is the perfect person to get recipes from for either simple or extravagant nights--whatever you’re feeling, really. I would 100% recommend her to anyone who was in search of a good food blogger. 10/10 boo boo!

The second food blogger I chose was Sirenna Patapis (@bakethedgeoff). Her specialty is baked goods, which she claims she is a “sucker” for. She is very quirky (ahaha) and lighthearted, as seen through her Instagram captions andwebsite, and her aesthetic is simple yet modern. But something that is mucho interesante is the fact that Carissa is Sirenna’s mentor. 

Her recipe didn’t involve too many ingredients and due to how simple the idea of sprinkle cookies was I assumed it would be clean and easy. I assumed wrong. The recipe itself called for normal cookie ingredients: flour, sugar, clear vanilla (like what?), eggs, baking powder, and butter. Simple, right? Wrong. As seen on the remnants of my jeans and sweater, the dough was way too sticky. It got absolutely everywhere. I used a hand mixer and it took all my strength to bang chunks of dough off the whisks on the side of the bowl. Then when I went to put them on the baking sheet, the stickiness made it *so* hard to scoop out cookies evenly so none of them were the same size. In her picture, they seemed to be quite big so I made them big as well. I didn’t realize that I had made an oopsie. After being in the oven for only eight minutes the dough balls had formed into one gigantic cookie. And after the twelve minutes that Sirenna recommended, they were still really undercooked. I ended up having to use a glass cup to cut the dough into small little cookies and hope for the best. The cookies themselves were kinda weird too. They weren’t bad, but there was just a certain odd taste to them that I couldn’t put my finger on (clear vanilla, eh hem). 

So listen, I really wanted to like this girl; I really did. I doubled the recipe to make for my school’s bake sale so maybe that’s where I went wrong, but I really don’t think that would have changed the feel and taste that much. Overall I don’t think I’d ever try to personally make another one of her recipes again. I ended up wasting over two hours of my life--sitting in front of my oven watching them slowly form into one big glob with tears streaming down my face and a hot mess of pans and flour behind me--for mediocre cookies I wasn’t even eating or making a profit on. That’s a phat L on my part I’m not gonna lie. 

So food bloggers; can we trust them? Sure. But only some of them. I started out not really liking them in the first place because a lot of the time they’re just posting on their instagram stories talking about stupid products from Whole Foods that they “live by” when in reality they just are getting paid to lie. Trust me I respect the hustle, but do I really want to be sitting on my phone tapping through fifty videos of a girl talking about cumin? NO! However, there are a select few who are real people blogging about their food because they just love to do it. When you can see and feel the passion and the excitement, that’s when you know they’re trustworthy; and that’s exactly what I see in Carissa. 

This entire experience just made me want to continue having my everyday eats of whatever my mom makes me. Even though Carissa was great, I don’t think I care enough to put a big meal together as well as she does. I mean I’m not saying food bloggers are bad people; I absolutely love their aesthetic and think that having food as a hobby is super cool. I’m just not gonna get on that train any time soon, unless 30 year old me goes down the internet black hole of lunch ideas for my kids -- and knowing me, I probably will.