Nigella says food pictures on Instagram are ruining aesthetic of dishes as she launches her own app

While Instagram is known by many as the platform where friends and family mainly post photographs of their food, Nigella Lawson has said it is not quite good enough to show off her home cooking exploits.

Because of this, the cook has now set up her own app, Foodim, which promises to give users the chance to edit their food pictures, to make their meals look as attractive as possible.

The domestic goddess, 59, said that social media apps "do food no favours", so has teamed up with a photographer to create her own.

Since she launched the endeavour on Thursday night, she has gained 2,600 followers on the app and liked over 3,000 photos.

The app promises to "optimise your camera specifically to take fabulous photos of food".

On it, users can edit their profile, write notes and recipes, and post and edit pictures of their food.

The editing funcionality allows foodies to add depth of field, contrast, colour temperature and more to their pictures.

Ms Lawson is one of the most prolific food writers on Instagram, boasting 1.6m followers on the platform, where she largely posts pictures of meals she has cooked.

"You don’t need me to tell you that nearly every photograph I take is of food," she explained.

The cook added: "It has always been vexing to me that there is no dedicated food photography app, and so many of the filters and so on that are meant to applied on general photography apps do food no favours.

"So, based on the principle that if something you want doesn’t exist, just go ahead and make it, I’ve been working for some time with my longtime cameraman to develop a food photography app with a built-in filter designed to optimise food and a back-of-shot blur dependent on the angle of the phone (as well as a draw-to-blur feature) to give depth of field. "

Some of the cook's fans have said they welcome an alternative to Instagram, which has in recent weeks been accused of hosting bullying and abuse.

Foodim's website reads: "Browse to see what everyone’s cooking and eating, get inspired, and connect with a welcoming community."

The free app is currently only available on iOS, and can only be download in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, but Ms Lawson said she hopes it will be on Android "soon".