• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, August 9, 2011

Marking the Web's latest culinary content grab, Allrecipes.com, a Reader's Digest company, has acquired Food Wishes -- a YouTube food channel created by "Chef John" Mitzewich. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Food Wishes now joins Allrecipes' collection of video content, including its original Web series "What's Cooking," as well as a collection of recipe and hundreds of how-to videos.

In simple cooking terms, the deal boils down to "owning the digital food video space by providing a growing database of original content," said Lisa Sharples, president of Allrecipes.com.

Across various channels, recent signs have suggested that consumers can't stomach much more food programming. Scripps Networks' Food Network and HGTV, for instance, both saw ratings declines late last year, according to Nielsen.

Allrecipes is obviously betting this trend will be offset by consumers' continued migration online and toward online video in particular.

At stake is a growing gold mine in online video advertising. In June alone, about 5.3 billion video ads were viewed online, which represented a 15% increase month-over-month, according to comScore Video Metrix. Video online commercials reached 49.2% of the U.S. population in June -- up from 45.4% month-over-month.

Food Wishes' content will remain on its YouTube channel, as well as being brought to Allrecipes' global audience of 20 million consumers through Allrecipes sites, mobile apps and Allrecipes.TV -- a video-focused site launched in June 2010.

Allrecipes says it already attracts 535 million visits a year with a mix of recipes, reviews, photos, profiles and blog posts. Launched as a single site 14 years ago, the Allrecipes franchise has grown to 17 Web sites, nine mobile apps and 13 eBooks serving readers in 23 countries and 11 languages.