Best Served Hot: May 10–16, 2026

I hope all the mothers reading this have felt especially appreciated today. And if the day is complex for you, I’m thinking of you too.

This week, beginning on May 6, Meta purged millions of bot, spam, and inactive Instagram accounts, wiping out lots of followers all at once, so all the stats are in a bit of flux. Buzzfeed’s Tasty lost almost half a million followers on Instagram, Jamie Oliver lost 83K, and Feel Good Foodie lost 24K, for example. It’s not just you! The in-depth Instagram charts introduced last week will return once things settle.

Inspired Taste surveyed 2,000 Americans about their cooking habits and found that home cooks are 300% more likely to turn to food blogs than AI for recipe inspiration, and 125% more likely to use physical cookbooks than AI.