4 Reasons Food Tattoos Are So Popular

* This is a guest post by Janet

You look delicious; I could just eat you up. Seriously. Your tattoo is making me hungry. A while back, Adam and Wendy posted an awesome collection of food tattoo pics. From sweet treats to salty meats, food tattoos are growing in popularity.

Everybody loves to eat, sure, but why are food items such a great choice for body art? If you break down the various ways we connect to food on an emotional and personal level, it’s not hard to see why food serves as popular inspiration for tattoos.

Food Is Love

Food = love. It just does. We cook with love, we feed the ones we love and sometimes, when words are not enough, we use food to express our feelings.

In difficult times there’s nothing better for self-love than a heaping helping of comfort food. So when it comes to choosing an image that we want on our skin what could be more perfect than a favorite food?

Food represents love on several different levels and often our food preferences are inspired by the relationships that introduced them into our lives. Families bond over dinner; first dates that turn into marriage usually start with a shared meal.

Eating and cooking is often motivated as much by love as it is by hunger. So perhaps a cupcake tattoo actually symbolizes the memories of cupcakes your mom used to make. Or maybe a Sweet potato is a shared passion with the love of your life.

When a tattoo choice is of a beloved food, it may actually represent a much greater love in our lives.

Food is Sexy

Our need to eat is as primal as our need to reproduce which, in a way, intrinsically ties food to sexuality. Chocolate is an aphrodisiac and strawberries and cherries are as powerful sex symbols as Marilyn Monroe.

There’s just something about certain foods that inspire intimate thoughts. So when someone wants a subtly sexual icon, images of food are a delectable idea. Especially when the tattoo itself is placed somewhere on the body that really turns up the heat.

Strategically located images of edibles can easily invoke thoughts of indulgence and guilty pleasure. This almost sub-conscious effect makes food tattoos the perfect way to be flirtatious without being gratuitous.

Food Is Identity

Many people define themselves through food, whether it’s the food they cook, the food they eat or the foods they were raised on. Every country or region has a distinct cuisine that plays a vital role in the lives of its locals. If we grow up immersed in any heritage, we tend to identify ourselves through that particular style of cooking.

From grape leaves to curry the core ingredients and flavor profiles associated with our culture come to represent a piece of who we are.

Sometimes the best way to express a very personal part of ourselves though tattoos is to pick something which represents our unique background. Whether it’s a national flag or a national dish, the sentiment is the same.

Even if food is not a large part of our background it may have developed into a crucial aspect of our present life. As people grow and discover a passion for cooking either as an enthusiast or a professional that affinity drives who we are.

When people love food so much that they dedicate their lives to it, it’s an easy decision to devote a tiny piece of the epidermis to it.

Food is Forever

I used to love a lot of things that I don’t care much for anymore. But my favorite childhood foods still make me warm and fuzzy. People who get tattoos at a young age often realize that their tastes and style are likely to evolve over the years.

So even though fashion is fickle, tummies know what they love, which makes food tattoos a fairly practical long-term choice. If it’s your go-to food now, there’s a good chance you’ll still be eating and loving it 20 years from now.

Sure there are probably a million reasons why people choose edible icons for their body art, but when you really think about how we as a society relate to food in our lives it’s easy to see why tasty tattoos are all the rage.

By-line:
Guest post by Janet.
Janet writes for New Look a laser tattoo removal clinic in Houston Texas. She is an experienced blogger and freelance writer with a great love of food and tattoo art.

Image by Mez Love

=> If you are interested in writing for this sweet food blog, check out the guest post guidelines here.

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