Agde: the recipes of Valentine Astruc, ValinFood on social networks, have already won a million subscribers
The 23-year-old girl, a graduate of a baccalaureate + 4 in communication, is experiencing an incredible rise on social networks. Where his light recipes with less than 600 calories have already attracted hundreds of thousands of subscribers on the internet. Encounter.
When your teenager comes home from high school enthusiastic about “a girl from Agde who offers great recipes on Instagram” and a week later, her mother proudly brandishes the book that the influencer has just published, it means that there is a subject.
Overfilled tables during confinement: the click!
We are not going to lie to each other: the journalist who is approaching his fifties had not seen the UFO coming, understand the unidentified video object. Fortunately for Valentine Astruc, ValinFood on TikTok and Instagram, not everyone is borrowed from social networks and in just eighteen months, her notoriety on the web has literally jumped, to reach more than a million subscribers – 500,000 on TikTok, 600,000 on “Insta” – ,which situates the phenomenon.
At 23, Valentine Astruc is already living off her recent notoriety. So far, foodies have mostly known the dad, Jean-François, who operates a pizza truck near Florensac. Valentine, she made a name, or rather a nickname, during the covid crisis. “I’ve always liked to cook, whether with my grandmothers or my father. But there, during confinement, it was exaggerated: we ate a lot! I decided to get into sports, to eat healthier . I must be one of the few to have lost weight during this period.”
His singing accent is also one of the keys to success
Experience shared through a first video posted on TikTok, “which had 70,000 views. Obviously I liked it, I felt I was on to something.” And as the young girl has a well-made head – she holds a bac + 4 in communication –, a thousand miles from the slew of influencers who make their lack of culture a business, the phenomenon has taken hold. Quickly. “I know that subscribers like my accent, in any case they tell me so”, launches Valentine. “I stay myself, natural, I show my daily life a bit.” And above all his recipes, which are a hit, therefore. Healthy dishes, well thought out, easy to make and low in calories. Much less than the originals. “I like to take traditional recipes to revisit them in a lighter way.”
She makes three to four videos a week.
The videos are made at his parents’, sometimes his grandmother’s, at the rate of “three or four a week.” Condensed films, from thirty seconds to one minute maximum, while there are forty minutes of rush to process. “It is important that people who come home from work, who are in a hurry, can cook the recipes quickly”, she justifies.
It was his subscribers, too, who advised him to put them down on paper. And if television has not yet taken an interest in ValinFood, which it does not take umbrage at all, video program projects around sport and good eating are becoming clearer. Eat light and work hard, the recipe for success.
80 recipes under 600 calories
“My gourmet recipes with less than 600 calories”: this is the title of the book by Valinfood, which has just been published by Marabout. “I had already produced an e-book (an electronic book) last year”, explains Valentine. “Several publishing houses then contacted me and I finalized the project with Marabout.” Bias taken from the book: the recipes are calibrated for one or two people. “When I started, I was cooking for myself. That’s the explanation.”
