Wine and baguette from Babette’s Cafe

Probably thanks to the inevitable combination of a Food Network-watching and Instagram-using generation, there’s been a lot of interest in food photography lately. Now, I’m not talking about professional, styled photos—although there are some amateur photogs out there who take breathtakingly beautiful food photos.

I’m talking about amateur photos snapped 5 seconds before digging in to either a plate at a nice restaurant or a home-cooked meal. Most are taken with phone cameras and aren’t even the greatest quality, but I find a lot of them to be really interesting—even beautiful in their own way. I think it’s because I like the idea of documenting what you eat, and really taking the time to enjoy your food.

Fish tacos from the Yumbii Food Truck

While it wasn’t uncommon for the boy and I to geek out over an amazing dessert and take pictures of the presentation before we destroyed it, the past few weeks I’ve been making more of an effort to document the less-fancy meals I’ve enjoyed. Besides being a fun way to ‘journal’, if you look at it philosophically, it makes one feel lucky to be able to eat the awesome things we do and be able to go out and enjoy a fabulous meal pretty much whenever we want, which isn’t something everyone in the world can say.

Cappuccino from Cafe Intermezzo

Which made me think of an idea for a social media campaign to help all those around the world who don’t have the luxury of 3 meals a day. People document their meals and share them online with a hashtag or link to a charity that helps feed the hungry. People donate, and call on their amigos to do the same. The act of taking the photos would make people think about what they’re about to enjoy, and maybe pass along a little of that to others by way of gratitude… what do you think? Eaten anything good lately? Let’s see a picture.