Your taco menu was drawn by an alien who's never eaten food
Restaurants everywhere are slapping AI generated food images on menus, flyers and delivery apps to skip pricey photoshoots, and the results are going viral for looking like nightmare fuel: maggot-riddled burritos, plasticky pasta, tacos with mystery holes. It started online to win visibility on apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats, but it's leaked into the physical world onto coffee shop posters and deli signs. Meanwhile companies like Tastewise are going further, using AI agents to help brands like Nestlé and PepsiCo decide what actually goes into your food, not just how it's photographed.
Why it matters
This isn't just bad photography, it's a preview of AI quietly making decisions about what you eat and how it's marketed, with zero human taste test required. Once AI starts shaping recipes and menus at scale for Big Food, the slop images might be the least weird part.