Everybody has a guilty pleasure, and for Natalie Guarna it’s porn—FOOD porn! A Newtown, Pennsylvania native, Guarna combined her love for music and food and created an Instagram account that features original pictures of food.
Two years ago, Guarna and her cousin, Lori, founded @music2mymouth. Every Instagram caption uses lyrics from popular, sappy love songs because Guarna is truly “singing love songs” to her food.
“The account started almost as an inside joke between my cousin and me. We come from a food-crazed family. We obsess over what we ate last weekend, what we’re going to eat next, and what we wish we could eat,” Guarna says.
“As far as coming up with the name, @music2mymouth, we thought of every phrase and cliché about music that we could and tried to make it relate to food. Finally, we thought of ‘music to my ears’ and boom, we had a name.”
In addition to her popular Instagram page, Guarna is involved in various clubs here at Penn State. She is currently the president for Penn State’s Operation Smile chapter, which is an organization dedicated to raising money to provide safe surgeries for children born with cleft lips and cleft palettes.
She has also taken her knack for social media and is a marketer for Penn State’s Spoon University, where she helps grow the page’s Instagram following. Guarna is double majoring in advertising and psychology and minoring in international studies.
“When I first started this account, I was a little ashamed of it. As silly as it was, I felt vulnerable, saying ‘this is something I like and am putting energy towards.’ It’s hard to put yourself out there, even online,” she says.
Guarna says the most important factor in taking a good picture is the lighting.
“On @music2mymouth we only post pictures with natural lighting. This can be tough since most restaurants are dimly lit. When I’m feeling bold, I ask for a seat near the window. When I’m feeling really bold, I actually take my food outside,” she says.
The most viral pictures, according to Guarna, are the ones of food that are melting, sizzling, or oozing!
Guarna and her cousin have turned @music2mymouth into a successful and multifaceted brand. Supplementary to their Instagram page, they frequently post articles and videos to their blog, They recently made a video where they asked older people whether or not they knew what food porn was.
This past summer, Guarna interned for Food Network in New York City in their ad sales department where she learned everything from digital content creation and studio production to talent scouting. After graduating this May, she plans on continuing her passion for food and digital media.
I think we can all relate to Guarna when she says, “As an impending college graduate, I feel like a hungry diner in line for an all-you-can-eat buffet: I’m both terrified and exhilarated by the options in front of me.”
Guarna encourages anyone who has thought about creating an Instagram to go for it!
“Instagram is a great place to show off your skills or to be funny or to flaunt the donut you ate this morning. It’s really just as simple as creating an account,” she says. “The people who I look up to, who I think are the coolest, are people who have hobbies and interests and obsessions — people who pursue them unabashedly.”
