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# This is a hashtag. When it comes before a number, it indicates its ranking; before a musical note it indicates a sharp; before any existing or invented word on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr and YouTube, it makes your term easily visible and searchable to other users who are posting on similar topics.
With their favourite food hashtags, social-foodies are among the most assiduous publishers and sharers of images and photos: they post the dishes they’ve cooked and/or eaten, whether at home or out in a restaurant, from breakfast to late-night snacks. They love innovative or nostalgic #foodpackaging, bizarre #fooddesign and well-curated #foodstyling.
Popular food hashtags
Using numerous hashtags in a single post increases its popularity and helps earn more followers so that one’s #foodtrend page becomes a true reference point – and its creator, a true #foodsetter. The most common food hashtag is simply #food, which – just on Instagram alone – brings up about 800,000 photos in just a few seconds.
Other popular food hashtags include #foodpic, #eat, #cooking, #recipe and of course our very own #FDLmoment. Each of these tags, of course, include their plural variants – so if you don’t want to lose potential followers, you should include both. If instead you want to express your passion for what you publish, go specific, like #ilovefood, #ilovecooking or #ilovetocook, #foodlove and #foodlovers.
Is your #foodpassion becoming a true obsession? Make sure you always sign off as #foodie or #foodaholic, claim to be a #foodvictim of a #foodaddiction and #foodism, shamelessly admit that you suffer from a #foodobsession. For those who are always looking for new places to eat, you might want to add #foodventures to the list.
After all, it describes the life of a #foodtraveller who never eats a meal without a telephone or tablet and is already ready to publish a real-time #foodreview. But remember: #badfood is hardly ever worth sharing, but food hashtags like #sogood, #delish, #delicious, #tasty, #yummy and #yumyum are always appreciated.
To indicate that you are actually eating the photographed dish, hashtaggers use #nom – and the better the dish is, the more “noms” you should add: you can have #nomnom, #nomnomnom and so on; the same is true for hastaggers in other languages. Italians use #gnamgnam, the French use #miamiam, #yomyom in Creole and #ヤムヤム in Japanese.
Often the yummiest of foods are also #highfat; food that arouses your senses enjoys claims like #sexfood, #foodheaven, #fooderrific, #foodgasm, #foodpornography, or simply #foodporn: a term that was coined by the feminist critic Rosalind Coward in her 1984 book, Female Desire.
Lovers of health food tend to use just a few, fresh, seasonal ingredients and then fill their posts with food hashtags like #healthyfood, #organicfood, #localfood, #farmerfood, #valuefood, #ethicfood, etc. etc. To satisfy your hedonistic desires and enjoy social praise, it’s not enough to publish your #foodpost every day with #foodphotooftheday in your #fooddiary, but you should take a few minutes to write the perfect hashtag recipe.
If you are short on time, check out tagsforlikes.com that provide pre-packaged tags, divided into groups by theme like #readymademeals and #fastfood.
From bacon to sushi, discover the popularity of the world’s favourite foods on Instagram. Click image to open interactive version (via Photoworld).
And remember, if you want to share your food and drink pictures with Fine Dining Lovers just add #FDLmoment to your pictures on Twitter or Instagram and we'll share the best.
