7NEWS Real Life podcast: Ann Reardon’s ‘How To Cook That’ YouTube channel busting food and cooking hacks – 7NEWS

It seems everywhere you look these days, theres some sort of misinformation floating around.

Most recently weve seen it around the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines, the 2020 US Presidential Election and 5G.

But there are other types of misinformation that are potentially more dangerous, and potentially deadly.

Weve all seen viral cooking and food hacks pop up on social media - theyre fast, bright and usually have an upbeat soundtrack.

As fun as they may be to watch, food scientist, YouTuber and author Ann Reardon is proving you cant believe everything you see.

Ann Reardon is a qualified food scientist, dietitian and mother who has found unexpected fame on YouTube.

Food in itself is fascinating, Reardon tells the Real Life podcast.

But then once you delve into the science of it, theres just so much I mean, essentially cooking is doing mini science experiments.

Youre mixing different ingredients and heating them up and seeing what the outcomes going to be - and small changes can make a big difference!

Her journey started straight out of high school.

I went to uni and did a degree in nutrition and food science, then from there, I went on to do postgraduate studies in dietetics to become a dietician.

Ann has been a community dietician, consulted for food companies and worked with young people before she started having kids.

Then motherhood intervened and she began looking for a new project.

I got into doing YouTube quite by accident when I was pregnant with my third son, I knew I had a year off (with) maternity leave, and I love, love, love little babies, but changing nappies and doing feeds and all of that stuff really didnt use that much of my mind space, and I knew that from previous kids.

So I thought Im going to start a website that I can work on during night feeds and basically just type with one hand and do all of that stuff, so I would just post once a week on the website.

I was doing blog posts every week and only did videos occasionally, if I felt like I could explain it better with a video, especially cake decorating type stuff, showing is much easier than doing.

There was virtually no videos about cake decorating back then on YouTube.

Being a YouTuber didnt exist 10 years ago, nobody knew you could make money from YouTube - you couldnt just upload and start making money.

So I started uploading weekly videos that was near the end of the year off maternity leave, and we could see that the videos were doing really well.

YouTube had emailed me saying, do you want to monetize your videos? and Id ignored it thinking yet its not actually going to make any money

I eventually filled out the form just to stop them emailing me and then realised this could become my part-time job, and I could stay at home, which is what I wanted to do.

But Ann has noticed a change in the types of videos posted to YouTube.

When I started way back then, everyone posted videos to help people you would never imagine trying to post a video that you knew was false.

But the monetisation of videos has seen what she calls content farms pop up, posting outrageous food and craft hacks that look good but are, at best impossible, and at worst, deadly.

Theres a difference between misinformation and disinformation - and thats one of them is deliberate.

If I put up a recipe and Im explaining how something works, but I didnt actually know, and the person had no background in food and thats how they thought it worked, that would be misinformation.

But if you know that what youre saying is wrong, like some of the videos say mix together, ice cream and icing sugar and youll get this beautiful, thick whipped frosting - thats physically impossible, theres no way that they did that.

Theyve switched it out for a different frosting at the end - thats disinformation, because they know that its not true, but theyre doing it for financial gain and to get views.

Weve all heard of puppy farms, places that continually breed dogs with little regard for the health or happiness of the animals, to produce and sell as many puppies as possible.

The digital equivalent is content farms, content creators who pump out viral hack videos with little regard for safety or authenticity, for clicks and cash.

So a content farm is where youve got 50 or 60 stations all filming video at once pumping out just hundreds of videos a month, all to just gain the algorithm to get heaps of views.

Theyre well produced, so they look like they should be real, and a lot of people have that misconception of why would anybody fake this?

But the trend is taking off.

More people are copying that trend now, so some of them are not content farms, some of them are just normal creators.

Normal creators now are doing the same thing, making fake content, making it look like its a real recipe and the outcome is not possible from what theyre saying or theyre doing.

Some of them can get dangerous, some of them are going to waste a lot of ingredients.

The other thing that theyre not sure about is, well if it is fake, why wouldnt YouTube or Facebook take it down? Surely if its fake, they wouldnt leave it up.

In response to Anns claims, YouTube says their Community Guidelines prohibit content that is intended to encourage dangerous activities that have an inherent risk of physical harm. According to YouTube, they use a combination of technology and people to enforce these guidelines.

While many of the fake recipes and hacks are fairly innocuous, others can be extremely dangerous.

In one case, one girl was killed and another injured in China.

They were following (a hack video) where they made a popcorn popper out of a Coke can, and you could do that safely, but it can also go very wrong if you dont know the basics of using flammable liquids.

Its presented in a way that it looks like a kid could do it and it doesnt come with any of the warnings.

One of the content farms, I saw an interview with one of their people and they said they were doing something with the burner and nearly set the whole studio and fire, but they had a fire extinguisher there, so they put it out.

None of the (videos) say you have to have a fire extinguisher next to it, so theyve got safety precautions, but the audience doesnt even get the warning.

With her How To Cook That channel, Ann tries out these recipes and hacks that have gone viral to demonstrate why they dont work.

I can watch the video and go that wont work and I know why it wont work.

Its more a matter of knowing whats going to happen but going it anyway, so that you can actually demonstrate it to people because once theyve seen it falsely work on a video, they need to see what really happens in order to sort of re-educate your mind.

As well as debunking viral hacks and rescuing cakes, Ann has been hard at work writing her first cookbook, Crazy Sweet Creations, released last year.

After 10 years, it took me a while to actually get around to doing it.

Its been going amazingly well, far better than I thought it woulda bestseller in the UK, in the US very, very exciting.

It has lots of desserts and they actually work!

Theyve been tested by multiple people to make sure everythings great, and you will get the outcome that youre supposed to get at the end of it.

Anns book Crazy Sweet Creations is available now. You can also check out the How To Cook That channel on YouTube.

You can hear Anns full interview in the Real Life podcast above. Its available now on Acast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Stitcher or your preferred podcast platform.

Follow this link:

7NEWS Real Life podcast: Ann Reardon's 'How To Cook That' YouTube channel busting food and cooking hacks - 7NEWS