What are Americans (and Chicagoans) eating and Tweeting?

When it comes to food and tweeting out what you’re having for dinner or that cool shot of the plate placed before you in a restaurant, or just generally sharing your foodstuff favorites with the Twittersphere, you might be surprised to learn that a lot of it has to do with our country’s various regions.

The word most often used in food-related posts from Illinois was “yolk.” The study further showed the most popular food-related hashtags by city: Chicago’s included “#breakfast” #foodie and “#BBQ.” (Keep in mind Chicago is home to that fab breakfast spot called Yolk.) What happened to pizza, hot dogs, Italian beef or corn? Our neighbors to the east in Indiana most often used the word “gyro” when tweeting about food.

Researchers at the University of Arizona studied more than 3 million food-related Twitter posts made by Americans over an eight-month period and came up with the results.

Regionally, the West Coast had the most to tweet about dinner, while the Midwest foodies tweeted most often about breakfast (hence the apparent frequency of “yolk” in Illinois?). “Lunch” was the food term most often tweeted in the South, while “brunch” was most often shared by Northeast residents.

Some interesting findings?

“Sauerkraut” was the most-tweeted food-related term in Nevada and Wisconsin, while Wyoming is obsessed with watercress and Mississippi apparently favors tangerines. Then there are the obvious: potatoes in Idaho, grits in many Southern states including Florida, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas. New York’s most-tweeted food-related term? That would be “prune.” (Keep in mind that one of New York’s most popular restaurants is named Prune).

And since this is an election year, the study also reveals some of the most-tweeted hashtag food terms by political party: Democrats tweet about #deli, #vegan, #bacon and #brunch, among others. Republican foodies tweet most often with #lunch, #party, #healthy and #delicious, among others.

The researchers also found that migration patterns have a lot to do with the food term tweeted.

Interested in reading the enitre scientific study results? You can check it out at https://suntimesmedia.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/1409.2195.pdf or click here.

Follow @MiriamDiNunzio

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