Celebrity greens kale and seaweed were long considered food of last resort

21.08.2023 - 12:04 / theunconventionalgardener.com / guest

Lauren Alex O’ Hagan, Cardiff University

Many of our diets are, to some extent, determined by the whims of fashion. This is not an astute observation, nor a particularly new one – just consider the 1970s obsession with pineapple and quiche. But social media is undoubtedly ramping up the food fashion cycle.

One recent survey found that 49% of adults learn about food through Instagram: avocado toast, turmeric lattes and cloud eggs were all first brought to the public’s attention through “foodstagramming”. Repeated posts on social media influence the reputation of particular foods, promoting them and making them exclusive within social circles.

Ironically, however, many of these trendy “Instagrammable” foods have a long association with poverty.

Ten years ago, you would have been hard-pressed to find kale in your local supermarket. But kale is now ubiquitous, from shops and social media to menus and foodie blogs, and has acquired a celebrity following from such stars as Gwyneth Paltrow, Michelle Obama and Beyoncé. The fame of this vegetable is largely attributed to an expensive media campaign in 2011 by the American Kale Association, which hired an entrepreneur to promote the product and remarket it as a superfood. But kale was once the food of the rural poor.

Kale has been grown in Europe for over 2,000 years and used to be so common that it was deemed only suitable for livestock. Considered to be hardy “but more curious than useful”, humans only ate kale as a last resort during times of famine or extreme poverty. For this reason, it acquired the nicknames of “poor man’s spinach” or “peasant cabbage”.

Kale became such a powerful symbol of Scottish peasantry that the word became used in Scotland to describe food in general, just