No, the reason is because it works better for search engine optimization, and also to display ads. A copyright wouldn’t protect the recipe from being stolen from the article.

Hi, web dev here -

The other guys correct. For big sites and most smaller ones, it’s because they can squeeze in SEO keywords and ad spots into their BS stories. Some smaller ones might do it cause “everyone else does it”, but the vast majority is just trying to improve recipe rankings, to the point that older recipes I’ve had bookmarked have had stories added to them years after upload.

Who told you that? The recipe is still there for you to just copy. The story doest help prevent it.

You can’t copyright the process of a recipe. This means that while recipes are copyrighted, you can get around this by rewriting the recipe using different words.