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do you encourage people to eat their greens? A new study shows that naming
vegetable dishes with adjectives that promote their flavor increases positive
thinking about healthful eating.
New research examines the psychological effect of food descriptions.
For some, a healthful diet means having to tolerate eating
bland tasting, unsatisfying foods, which can seem like a punishment rather than
an enjoyable eating experience.
New research, appearing in the journal Psychological Science, shows that giving
healthful dishes a more enticing description can significantly increase the
uptake of healthful options.
In the long term, this means that people are more likely to
maintain good eating habits, leading to a sustainable, healthful diet and a
better quality of life.
Using previous research findings
A few years ago, researchers from the University of
Stanford, CA, teamed up with Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises to
trial a new approach to healthful eating.
They removed the adjectives that described unhealthful foods
and devised a system of naming healthful foods according to the flavors in the
dish.
For example, they used "twisted citrus glazed
carrots" to make carrots sound tastier to eat, believing that most people
prioritize tastiness over healthfulness in the moment of choice.
From this experiment, the researchers learned that
decadent-sounding food labels encouraged people to eat vegetables more
frequently than if these same foods had neutral or health-focused names. They
published the results from this initial
study in 2017.
Taste-focused labels affect eating
choices
This year, the same group took the research further,
extending this approach to university students. For this new study, they used a
randomized, multisite intervention involving 57 colleges and universities in
the United States to assess the effect of taste-focused food labeling.
Over a period of 185 days, the team analyzed 137,842
decisions about 24 types of vegetable in 71 dishes with healthful, neutral, or
taste-focused names.
The researchers found that giving vegetables a taste-focused
label increased the uptake of the meal by nearly a third (29%) compared with
using a health-focused label.
There was also a 14% increase in the uptake of vegetables
when they had taste-focused names rather than neutral names. Overall, when the
researchers analyzed the consumption of healthful food by comparing the initial
servings with the amount that the diners discarded into compost, they saw a 39%
increase in the weight of vegetables that the participants consumed.
Alia Crum, an assistant professor of psychology and senior
author on the paper, says that taste-focused food labeling works because
"it increases the expectation of a positive taste experience."
"In particular," she says, "references to
ingredients such as 'garlic' or 'ginger,' preparation
methods such as 'roasted,' and words that highlight experience, such as
'sizzling' or 'tavern-style,' help convey that the dish is not only tasty but
also indulgent, comforting, or nostalgic."
Describing foods using nonspecific positive words, such as
"absolutely amazing," did not increase uptake because they were too
vague.
According to the researchers, the fact that college students
in the U.S. are the age group with the lowest intake rate of vegetables means
that people should not underestimate these increases in healthful eating.
Limitations and future research
There is a limitation to this research, however, in that the
researchers do not mention cost as a factor that may influence healthful eating.
Indeed, if healthful foods are generally more expensive than
unhealthful foods, it stands to reason that dropping the prices of healthful
foods to be more in line with those of unhealthful foods might further boost
the increase in the uptake of healthful foods with taste-focused names.
This issue may be something that researchers will want to
look into in the future.
The two studies together have shown that emphasizing tasty
and enjoyable attributes increases vegetable intake in a world where these
healthful meals are competing with more overtly tempting options.
In the long run, the research team hopes to enable
real-world change and have a broad effect on eating habits.
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