When I was in college food network was in its infancy and the term celebrity chef was a few years from being part of the daily lexicon. From years of watching the food network I learned a lot, branched out and tried new foods, and became more confident in the kitchen. Some place down the road a lot seems to have changed with celebrity chefs and food programing on television.
The chefs on the food network used to seem so passionate about teaching us about food. Every time I tuned in I felt like I had been personally invited to the kitchen to learn how to make their favorite dish. It was the next best thing to learning in the kitchen with my mom. Alton Brown taught me about the science of food, Bobby Flay taught me how to grill, Emeril taught me to try and enjoy my time in the kitchen and there were other chefs that left an impression on me. Even Rachel Ray, who had less prior cooking experience taught me how to make quick meals.
Now food programming across all channels and even HGTV seem to have succumbed to a sensationalist style that focuses on competition and is more about personality than substance and teaching.
Because of those early chefs I believed that all chefs cared about what people ate. I believed they wouldn’t endorse products they wouldn’t themselves use. When I see Rocco DiSpirito and Carla Hall endorsing Kraft Recipe starters.
Duff’s face on a boxed cake mix, icing and ice cream it makes me come unglued. The box claims it is bakery quality. Nothing about the ingredients in that cake are bakery quality. 
I feel strongly that people should learn to eat well and take care of themselves and that should involve the smallest amount of process food you can muster. When the chefs that put themselves out there as people who know good food start talking about how easy Kraft recipe starters it makes teaching people about real food even harder.
If they decide to endorse products I wish they had higher standards. They don’t all have to be Jaime Oliver and champion the cause of people eating better, but it would be nice if they didn’t perpetuate a problem they were at one point actually helping to solve. Getting people who are afraid of the kitchen into the kitchen is the first step to a healthier life and they were good at that once.
Do you think that celebrity chefs have a responsibility to their fans? Should they be helping to educate people on eating properly?
It’s definitely changed from what it used to be, and I kind of stopped watching the channel. I learned a lot about food from those shows, too. We just rid of cable, but the only show I really watched anymore was Extra Virgin, and that was on the Cooking Network, which I think the Food Network owns. There are so many other places to get inspiration these days - blogs! - and I think that’s part of their problem.
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I don’t watch any of the shows any more either. Once it got into reality tv mode it lost me. I haven’t checked out the cooking network much yet. Maybe I will have to look there.
I don’t watch the Food Network much any more either because whenever I turn it on, it’s always a competition. I just wanted to learn a new cooking technique. I’m not interested in other chef’s dueling it out!
And all of the endorsements they push, they should be ashamed! That cake mix…no thank you!
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I don’t mind top chef duels but the ones on food network never seem to be on that level so I have never been able to get into them either. I miss the cooking shows in primetime.
Endorsing things like that quick meal in a box is pretty crazy! And I agree, these competition shows are out of control. I do love Chopped though!
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I so agree with you on both Food Network and HGTV too. I am so not interested in seeing what anyone can come up with to eat OR design under time pressure and a totally crabby budget or limited ingredients. No thanks. I am MUCH more interested in seeing what people can do after they have put some thought and effort into it. That is so much more interesting to me. It’s so weird, I used to watch HGTV all the time, now I never watch it. I miss Sarah Richardson’s shows so much in particular…
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I love Sarah! She had the best rooms. Now it is all House Hunters and unrealistic “crashes” shows. Such a same for both networks. Funny how when the networks started they did what they loved and it catered to us. Now there is test data and they make this mediocre product for ratings. My trust in the brand completely died.
I’ve never watched The Food Network (we’ve never had cable). However, when I lived in the bay area, Michael Chiarello had a show on PBS that I really liked. He made cooking seem so simple.
Some days I wish I never had cable! His PBS show is what food network used to be. It is what I miss.