Food Jenga Makes It Perfectly Acceptable To Play With Your Food

Did anyone — your mom or dad, maybe the school lunch lady — ever tell you not to play with your food? That was probably good advice back in the days of childhood, when nothing was as much fun as blowing bubbles in chocolate milk or drinking water through a Twizzler. But today, full-grown adults are embracing playing with food, thanks to a trend that they're calling "Food Jenga."

Jenga, of course, is a classic dinner party game sold by Hasbro, where you stack wooden pieces to make a tower, then take turns pulling them out and hoping the entire structure doesn't come crashing down. Now, envision transferring those careful stacking and cautious sliding skills to the dinner table. You've just pictured Food Jenga, or #FoodJenga, as Instagrammers call it. As the name implies, this informal trend has diners stacking their food in crazy ways, then trying to pull out the portions. Explore that hashtag on Instagram to see just how elaborate it's already become.

Some edibles are easier to work with: French fries are so stackable it's almost cheating.

Depending on their shapes, cookies can stack pretty well.

Twix candy bars make for a solid stack.

As do these doughnuts.

Some Instagram users just create the stack and snap a photo to admire and upload. Others go whole hog and actually play the game, inevitably ending in a collapse of cookery. Australia's Nine Network even shared a video of staffers playing a few rounds of Food Jenga. (Tip: The more evenly sized cookies work better than random shapes.)

Want to play? Here's the rundown on Hasbro's genuine Jenga and its official rules: Players are supposed to use only one hand at a time, but may tap a block (or a biscuit, whatever) to figure out if it's loose enough to wiggle free. And if you need more ideas to jazz up your Instagram account, check out our food trend predictions for 2018.