We all need to eat, now write about it! (How To Write A Good Food & Drink Review)

Member Name: i_am_joy

Product:	How To Write A Good Food & Drink Review
Date:	04/07/09 (97 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: You'll give the consumer a better idea about the product, higher ratings and more reads for you

Disadvantages: ----------

Well, well, well. My 900th review. I thought I would use the milestone to perhaps give a few pointers on how to write a good food and/or drinks review, not to be condescending at all but as I am the Community Guide for the food and drink category I tend to read most of what is posted there and much of it unfortunately is below standard. Newbies seem to target food and drink as how hard can it be to write 150 words about every chocolate bar available? Describe each individual tin of Heinz soup and *whoosh* there's 500 Dooyoo Miles in your account and you haven't even mentioned the taste!

Gosh, there is so much more to a food and drink review than telling me what colour the packet is and going to great pains to educate me on how to heat a tin of beans. It's just not necessary. Yes, if your chosen product comes in a super duper wrapper that will be worth a description then a couple of lines would be helpful but I don't honestly think a two paragraph detailed segment about the colours on a Mars Bar is appropriate - especially as there is a photograph of the Mars Bar directly above your review (and because we all know what they look like anyway). I personally have started using the packaging description in any food and drink review as a consideration when it comes to rating, not so long ago I had to rate an otherwise perfect drinks review as Useful because a third of the text was taken up by a description of a coffee jar - without this unnecessary bumph it would easily have had a crown nomination from me.

Likewise ingredients lists. It's padding in my opinion and an absolute waste of your time sitting squinting at the packets and typing it all out! Have a look at the ingredients list and use your own judgement as to whether any one thing jumps out at you as something a potential consumer would want to know; Aspartame is one a lot of people mention due to the recent furore surrounding the use of the artificial sweetener and it's possible health risks, also you might perhaps want to mention if there seems to be a particularly high amount of E numbers or colourings used in a food product marketed for children. One thing that I really do not see the point of is mentioning whether a product contains nuts, my nephew has a peanut allergy and believe me it's so frightening that NO nut allergy sufferer is going to take your word for the fact that 'this particular chicken pie' doesn't contain any nuts or traces of nut. If you've ever been grocery shopping with a nut allergy sufferer you'll see how obsessively they scrutinise their own packets and then you'd see the irrelevance of your warnings!

Nutritional content, well I think this is one area where the Dooyoo community is split. Personally I might or might not include the calories and fat content of a food, basically it's down to whether I remember to make a note of them before throwing the wrapper away or not! A member mentioned to me tonight that she feels a review is incomplete without at least a nod towards nutritional values, but even having said this the consumer doesn't need you to copy every single fact and figure from the label. As a general rule of thumb I'd say that if you want to include this information then simple calories and fat content will suffice unless you notice a product has a particularly high salt content or something like that and then it's fine to elaborate on.

One thing I do expect is that the majority of your review be on the flavours, textures and aroma of the foodstuff you're reviewing. What use is any food review that simply describes something as 'nice' and 'yummy'? I want to know if a cake tastes of vanilla or strawberry, is the jam you're reviewing fruity or just sugary, can you taste the beef in your beef lasagne - and if so, is it gristly or well cooked? Taste is hard to describe so I advise you to write your review as quickly as possible after eating or drinking it; while eating try to make mental notes about the texture, take time to savour the individual flavours for us drooling readers, let us know if something doesn't quite work or if something works particularly well. Don't scrimp on the detail with your descriptions here.

As a consumer I want to know if your chocolate bar was creamy, was there enough nuts in it and did they taste fresh? Did those Yorkshire Puddings drip with fat as you put them onto the dinner plates or were they beautifully crisp? Were the Chilli flavoured crisps so strong they burned your tongue, or were they just spicier Ready Salted? How much meat exactly was there in your Tesco Chow Mein - and more importantly what meat was it? Try to take into consideration as much about your chosen product as possible and word it in a way that will make your review interesting to read, include lots of personal opinion but remember that the product should be your main focus and while I rather enjoy chatty and personal reviews if it comes to the point where I am struggling to pick out the worthwhile information about the product then I'm afraid your review becomes less useful to me.

Cooking instructions I don't really think are necessary unless you have encountered problems with the cooking time that is specified on the packaging. I find Tesco Finest products don't give terribly accurate cooking times so when writing about an item from that particular range I may well mention that the product takes 50 minutes to cook rather then the specified 35 minutes, but I honestly do not need you to tell me in detail about every different way of cooking frozen fish and then give me a step by step commentary on how you took it out of the box, put it on a baking tray, pre-heated the oven and blah..... blah..... blah..... It just makes your review very dull to read and can even come across as rather insulting sometimes even though this is obviously not the reviewers intention.

Obviously this review is my personal opinion, I don't expect or want anyone to change their writing style to fit in with my tips but I hope some of my advice will be taken on board - and please, please, please do not think that you recognise yourself in any comment I have made in this review. At no time have I written anything with any one member or review in mind, paranoia is such an ugly trait so don't get your knickers in a knot if you think you talk too much about packaging just have a rethink about how you write and structure your reviews.

Oh, and 'Moorish' actually relates to the customs and architecture of the Spanish Moors (the people) whereas 'moreish' means this particular food leaves you wanting more. I doubt many categories in food and drink require education on the Moorish culture so it's obviously the other one you want!

Summary: If you write well (in all categories, not just food) you'll find more members read your work.