It’s not just your imagination: Almost every day is a national food day.

‘If it seems like every day is a new national food day, that’s because it is’ Claudia McNeilly

‘Ha ppy nati onal ice cream day!” the Instagram caption read. It was accompanied by a picture of a waffle cone stacked with pastel scoops of salted caramel, mint chocolate chip and strawberry ice cream.

As an adult, being wished a “happy national ice cream day” on an otherwise uneventful Tuesday elicits a peculiar discomfort. “Why is it national ice cream day?” you may wonder after receiving such festive well wishes. Or perhaps more importantly: “How does one have a happy national ice cream day, anyway?”

If it seems like every day is a new national food day, that’s because it is. Each month, this calendar year is littered with days celebrating everything from Hummus ( May 13) to Nutella ( Feb. 5). In fact, literally every day this coming July has been designated as a national food holiday. Demand for food days is so great that some foods have even been made to share a date. For example, July 17 is national ice cream day, but it is also national peach ice cream day, which seems like unfortunate timing for the lesser- known flavour that is likely tired of having to share a day with all the other more popular varieties of the ice cream canon.

At first glance, it may seem like harmless fun, but there is an insidious side to these national food days, one based on commercialism and poor nutrition that capitalizes on the ignorance of a food culture that wants desperately to express itself even when it has nothing to say.

The National Day Calendar group in North Dakota — whose slogan is “Join us as we Celebrate Every Day™” — is responsible for creating the majority of national food holidays in the United States, which, for better or worse, end up being celebrated in Canada as well. The organization started in 2013, and has rapidly grown to track over 1,500 national days, weeks and months, many of which are food related. Anyone can submit a subject for consideration to The National Day Calendar after paying a fee between $ 2,300 and $ 4,500 USD. But it is up to the group’s board members to decide whether or not your chosen subject becomes an official national holiday.

While some branded food days, like World Nutella Day on Feb. 5, are the organic result of rabid Nutella fans that bonded together to dedicate an entire day to their favourite chocolate spread, the vast majority exist at the behest of lobbyist groups and government organizations. For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations orchestrated World Milk Day to land on June 1.

National food days offer great excuses to deflect poor dietary choices to external forces outside of our control. Reaching for a triple scoop ice cream cone on national ice cream day is a fantastic way to make a sugar addiction feel like festive fun. And while all holidays may be veiled excuses to stuff our bodies with inordinate amounts food that no adult wants to take personal responsibility for consuming, at least Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving have the decency to cloak their gluttony in presents, costumes and family, respectively.

Erecting entire holidays around the sport of consuming ice cream sodas ( July 20) and corn fritters ( July 16) is not a celebration of food so much as it is a ceremony of thoughtless gluttony. As food culture has propelled calorie-laden cake milkshakes and pizzas topped with mini pizza slices to the forefront of gastronomy, this variety of unapologetic gluttony has become the latest applauded venture to be photographed and shared online.

The result is that every time a national food day rolls around, food bloggers around the world hurry to wish their followers a “happy * insert gluttonous food here* day!” alongside a lavish picture of the food in question. But no one cares about eating ice cream on national ice cream day as much as they care about seeming like they have something to say. National food days provide safe and pleasant subjects that anyone can post to secure validation in the form of likes while reminding the world of his or her existence. In this way, food holidays serve as disguised opportunities for shameless self- promotion, while offering great marketing for the brands that make the foods in question.

The increasing number of food holidays is the result of a population of foodies who are desperate for something to say without wanting to think too hard about what it is they are saying. In this sense, these designated days promote the type of mindless, self- indulgence that has given foodies their negative reputation.

No one knows why he or she is celebrating national ice cream day beyond simply looking for an excuse to eat ice cream. Such frivolous consumption might be harmless in small doses, but as nearly every day of the calendar year gets turned into a food holiday, we avoid taking responsibility for the foods that we are already choosing to consume — and the myriad problems that our over-consumption causes.

It is not national ice cream day; it’s Tuesday. And if a craving for ice cream does strike, the frozen treat is, thankfully, available several other days of the year including Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and of course, Sundays.

People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state. — Abraham Joshua Heschel