Canadian YouTube cooking show, Epic Meal Time, is famous for producing meals that are excessively high in kilojoules and fat, using a lot of meat, especially bacon, as well as cooking with alcohol, particularly Jack Daniels.
Epic Meal Time launched in October 2010, and now releases weekly shows, has won awards, features celebrities, has an app and video game, has generated multiple parodies, and has been interviewed on The Tonight Show.
Each episode, usually under 6 minutes, features Harley Morenstein as the host, accompanied by his friends. Profanity is bleeped out by bird sounds. Morenstein concedes the show is “Jackass in the kitchen.”
In most episodes, as ingredients are added, on-screen counters present the calorie and fat content of each new component and of the meal overall. Episodes generally end with people messily eating the meal with their hands.
Epic Meal Time uses merchandising to raise money for the show by selling a line of branded t-shirts. They’ve pondered the creation of a cookbook and an iPhone app. The episodes also contain YouTube Google AdSense advertisements.
The show is hugely popular and receives millions of views per episode; so much so that Morenstein quit his job as a high school teacher. Morenstein interpreted the popularity by saying, “In this day and age, I feel like there’s a big emphasis on organic foods or a lot of negative media in regards to obesity and stuff like that. We are there eating this, and [viewers] are eating vicariously through us.”
Watch this video on making chicken salad; Epic Meal Time style.
WARNING for sensitive viewers: Explicit language
Would you like to eat vicariously through ‘Epic Meal Time’ or do you think it’s over-the-top and unhealthy?