A third of young Londoners choose their restaurant food for how it will look on Instagram

A third of young Londoners claim they buy food from restaurants and takeaway venues because of the way it would look on Instagram and not for how it tastes.

A survey by Just Eat found 34 per cent of young adults aged from 18 to 44 picked food that would look good on social media and would perhaps boost their following – and not because they actually wanted to enjoy it.

One in 10 in the poll of 2,000 said taste and appearance were of equal importance, with 20 per cent saying they didn’t use social media while eating.

According to a recent Waitrose report, 18 to 24-year-olds are five times more likely to share photos of their food online than the over 55s. It claims 130,000 pictures of food are posted to social media every day in the UK.

Some of the most popular images are of #avocadotoast, which has 1,259,182 hashtagged posts on Instagram, and #smoothiebowl, which has 2,056,445 posts.

The Just Eat study also found three-quarters of Britons would consider turning vegan – with over 90 per cent surprised by how delicious plant-based food was once they tried it.

Statistics from the Vegan Society indicate the number of plant-based individuals in the UK has quadrupled between 2014 and 2018. In 2018 there were 600,000 vegans, or 1.16 per cent of the population.

The study was commissioned ahead of Just Eat Food Fest, which takes place on 25 and 26 July in Shoreditch’s 93 Feet East.