When she opened an Instagram account in 2012, Shahita Shahi had no intentions of turning it into a foodstagram. She used it to post pictures from her everyday life and her account was private. But @onehungrydentist subtly and gradually morphed into a food blogging account but she says she still doesn’t consider herself to be a food blogger.
A dentist by profession (if you couldn’t tell by her Instagram handle), Shahi decided to turn her account into a food blog in 2013 when one of her friends pointed out that she mostly put up pictures of food anyway. This was when she changed the privacy setting of her Instagram page to public. At the time, Shahi was doing her masters in China. The food culture of the country was very different than what she was used to and Shahi mentions that she really enjoyed exploring this new taste through the local delicacies of China.
If you scroll through her Instagram feed, you will see a few travel pictures among food posts. “This breaks the structure of the posts on my feed so that it doesn’t feel very monotonous,” says Shahi who also calls herself a big time travel enthusiast. After studying in India and China, she says that she has come to love foreign food almost as much as Nepali food. She adds that every time she travels to a new place, she makes it a mission of sorts to try out as many local food items as possible. And besides traveling abroad every now and then, she also enjoys traveling to different places within Nepal that she hasn’t been to before.
Eating junk food is bad for health!
Unlike most food bloggers who tend to rate and go into the details of what they liked or disliked about the foods they try out, Shahi keeps her reviews simple. She mentions the food item she tried and explains briefly what it tastes like. She says different people have different tastes which is why instead of trying to influence people through her opinions, she wants to urge them to try the food themselves and figure out whether they like it or not.
Shahi also posts pictures of the recipes she tries out on both her Instagram feed and stories. She says that this is something she has started doing very recently. Although she sometimes does come up with her own recipes, she mentions that she mostly tries out either the interesting recipes she finds on the internet or recipes recommended by her family and friends.
As someone who has been food blogging for quite some time now, Shahi claims to be delighted to see the evolution of foodstagrams. “A lot of foodstagrams have come up in the past few years and I’m happy to see that. I believe in the future foodstagrammers will receive a lot more opportunities and exposure and food blogging will become a proper career,” she says.
Although a lot of food bloggers are trying their hand at making YouTube videos or opening online blogs (not just limiting themselves to Instagram), Shahi says that isn’t something she sees herself doing anytime soon. She is busy enough juggling her job as a dentist and managing her Instagram page.
When asked if she doesn’t eat certain food items because she thinks they will damage her teeth, Shahi confesses nothing stops her from eating. “I rinse my mouth properly after every meal and also after drinking carbonated drinks. I suggest everyone to do the same if they want to avoid dental problems in the future,” she says.
