Playing mind tricks with your food
German bestseller explores links between psychology, culture and food choices
From the moment we wake up, we start making decisions about food.
Tea or coffee? At home or from a drive-thru? Will breakfast be cereal — and which kind, in which bowl, with what topping? Or will we just grab a granola bar to go?
Authors Melanie Muhl and Diana von Kopp assert that we make more than 200 such food decisions every day, many subconsciously.
The pair, who live and work in Germany — Muhl as a journalist, von Kopp as a psychologist — explore the reasons behind our food choices in their book, How We Eat with Our Eyes and Think with Our Stomachs: The Hidden Influences That Shape Your Eating Habits.
The book, a bestseller in Germany, is now available in North America, after being translated into English by Carolin Sommer.
In a series of mini essays, and drawing on the worlds of neuroscience, pop culture and behavioural psychology, Muhl and von Kopp touch on more than 40 different topics, from manipulative grocery store layouts to how colour impacts flavour (yes, margarine is a specific shade of yellow for a reason).
Here are five things we learned reading How We Eat with Our Eyes and Think with Our Stomachs. Contemplate the plates The next time you’re dishing out dinner, think about your tableware.
It turns out the tastiness of your meal relies on more than just a good recipe, fresh ingredients and your cooking skills.
Among other sensory inputs, the colour of your plate influences how your brain will determine deliciousness. Research has revealed, for example, that eating from red plates reduces hunger, write Muhl and von Kopp.
“We associate the colour red with danger: Toadstools are red, as are warning signs and fire extinguishers. Our natural response to danger is to run away, not to feel hungry.”
But, the authors add, you can boost appetite with the right plate colour.
“Another experiment by scientists from Oxford University showed that dementia patients in a British hospital ate nearly a third more of their food if their white fish was served on blue plates instead of the usual beige ones: The fish was no longer an indefinable goop but now looked like it was freshly caught from the sea.” Sound can be sweet Think about the last meal you ate at a sit-down restaurant. What kind of music did you hear?
A sophisticated restaurateur will have chosen specific tunes to enhance your dining experience, write Muhl and von Kopp.
Researchers have found all sorts of interesting things about how music and sound influence the way we eat and how we taste, including: High-pitched sounds bring out a food’s sweetness. Classical music makes people chew more slowly. Eating seafood while listening to seaside sounds prompts diners to say their meal is especially fresh-tasting.
“Music at mealtimes is much more than just a pleasant backdrop — it has the power to significantly alter the taste of your food,” write Muhl and von Kopp. British Airways, they add, has adopted this premise to improve the taste of their multi-course meals served on long-haul flights.
“They serve a playlist that suits the menu to compensate for the loss of flavour caused by the noise, dry air, and change in air pressure.” Server influence Servers often influence our restaurant food order — think delivering the specials and clever upselling.
But the authors note servers can also sway our choices before they’ve even said a word.
One study, highlighted by Muhl and von Kopp, examined the interactions between servers and diners at 60 different restaurants and found “the higher the BMI (Body Mass Index) of the waiter or waitress, the more food and drink the customers ordered, regardless of their own weight.”
The study also found ordering from an overweight server increased the likelihood diners would order alcoholic drinks and dessert.
So, what’s going on here? Muhl and von Kopp explain that diners, perhaps unconsciously, see their servers as benchmarks of a social norm. Sit-ups for your nose The smell of sizzling bacon. The citrusy scent of a freshly peeled orange. The yeasty aroma of baking bread. Think of all the ways our nose helps us to enjoy our meals.
But what happens if you don’t smell well?
Muhl and von Kopp explain that exercising your olfactory system can help train your brain to recover or improve your sense of smell.
“People with no or a very weak sense of smell, so-called anosmiacs, can learn to smell (better) by sniffing at special aromatic oils such as rose, clove, eucalyptus, and lemon twice a day. After only 12 weeks they should see significant improvement in their sense of smell.”
So why not, the authors continue, add nose exercises to your workout regime? Especially since our sense of smell declines as we age. Crunch and rustle What makes potato chips so delicious? That magically addictive combination of salty-fattycrispy goodness, of course.
But also, write Muhl and von Kopp, the specific sound of the chips crunch crunch crunching in our mouths, which is why food scientists spend so long perfecting a chip’s shape and texture, whether classic, ruffled or thick-cut.
“We associate the sound of biting into a chip with quality and freshness,” they write.
Does the same premise hold true for the distinctive crinkle and rustle of opening a bag of chips?
Muhl and von Kopp claim that yes, a specific bag-opening sound does make your snack taste better, and they provide the following anecdote about Frito-Lay as evidence.
“The Texan chip giant developed a bag, made out of biodegradable material, which at more than 90 decibels was louder than a motorbike. Not only did it earn the company massive complaints, but sales of SunChips fell by 11 per cent. They recovered only when the company dropped the noisy packaging (which they had spent years developing) and replaced it with one that rustled more
quietly.”