National Food Days Are Not Real Holidays

As I write this, our nation is celebrating National Coffee Day. At least, that's what my Facebook feed and the trending hash-tags on Twitter is telling me. I haven't been wished a "Happy National Coffee Day" from a family member, a friend, or even a barista. Yet, in celebration of this so-called holiday, everyone from Dunkin Donuts to Peet's is celebrating with special deals for customers.

And I hate it. Today's holiday should be right up my alley. If there's one thing I love more than coffee, is free coffee. But this "National Food Holiday" thing is getting out of hand.

January 1st starts something called National Buffet Week, while September 10th calls for everyone to celebrate the wonder and glory that is the TV Dinner. September 18th was National Cheeseburger Day, which somehow overshadowed September 15th's National Double Cheeseburger Day.

Since 2007, there are 175 "food holidays" a year. At least. That number is certainly higher today, but because none of the holidays are approved by a national governing body, it's impossible to get a comprehensive list of which foods we should be celebrating on what days. And that should point in the direction of the problem of these so-called holidays.

They're not created through channels that involve application, debate, and ultimate approval. (Unlike other national holidays or days of remembrance that dot the calendar.) Rather, for the most part, food holidays are simply invented by various PR reps for food lobbies or specific brands, looking to get their product more exposure. (Someone from the beef lobby certainly pushed for the aforementioned burger-infused holidays, and November 12th's National Chicken Soup Day comes courtesy of Chicken Soup for the Soul Enterprises.)

Instead, lobbyists and PR folks find a local elected official who seems to enjoy a certain food, ask them to designate an arbitrary date "National [Blank] Day," probably give them a bunch of the product, a declaration is made towards the end of some legislative session, and bam: It's an unofficial holiday.

This wasn't how it always was. Back in the day, and I can't believe I'm about to write this, food holidays actually received more official status:

But in the above cases, the holidays in question were one-time affairs. What's changed now is the proliferation of social media. Behold, Facebook's question to me today:

Before, a day would come and go, and that would be that. But because spreading the news about these so-called holidays is so easy -- it's just a click on Facebook, a hash-tag on Twitter -- it's tough to ignore now. Why this is problematic?

A media organization notices that it's "National Whatever Day" and writes a quick post about it. Why not? It's an easy topic that isn't going to get any negative reaction, and literally takes 20 minutes to put together. Then it gets shared across all spectrums of social media, with everyone being sent to the original post to get the details. The writers and managers see the traffic spike from that post, and so begins the plan to cover every food holiday on the calendar. (And KCET is not immune to this.)

The site basically provides free advertising for the food lobby or brand that funded the creation of the "holiday" in the first place. This is not good.

What am I calling for? An end to food holidays? Why even bother, since they don't really mean anything. An end to government officials declaring them? Like that would even work. Rather, I'm calling for an end to sharing information about them on social media. With no traffic, the cycle will end, and food writers can focus on writing stories about actual news.

So, please: Don't drink coffee because it's National Coffee Day. Drink it because it's delicious. And then, more importantly, don't tell anyone.