Plating affects appetite

EATING is an experience that involves all our senses, but particularly our senses of taste, sight and smell.

Do you know that the way food is presented on a plate can affect a person’s appetite? Or that the colour of the plate itself can dictate how appetising food looks?

According to historical research, food was presented in overly elaborate and ornate ways to represent wealth and one’s status in society, and today, the focus has shifted to display a chef’s creative abilities as well as enhance the customer’s overall food experience. Chefs now intimately understand people employ more than just their taste buds when consuming dishes.

So, what is it about a beautiful-looking plate that makes us pick up our forks in anticipation?

Experts reveal that food presentation is just as essential to the success of a dish as its taste and flavour. The way the food looks on the plate is what tempts people’s eyes and makes them want to taste it.

Chef Sbu Nhleko says it’s become even more important for chefs to focus on how the food is presented. Nhleko says that with social media being so popular and with people sharing their meals on the internet, the pressure is on to make sure the food looks and tastes good, and the standards are upheld at all times.

What’s the surprising psychology behind plating up a meal?

Well, a beautiful plate is associated with positive emotions that are appetising to us and make us excited to dig in. A not-so-beautiful plate, on the other hand, comes off as boring and doesn’t stimulate the same excitement to take the first bite.

According to Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist, “when the plating is artistic, people tend to enjoy the food more than if the same ingredients were just dumped on the plate”.

In fact, the science of plating goes much deeper than that.

Here’s how:

We eat with our eyes first

When hunger strikes, often we eat with our eyes, because the first thing that’s visible to us becomes just what we want. It may not be the best item to satisfy hunger, but it’s what we grab. Our eyes see the food and tell our brain what it will taste like through a whole series of learned and natural responses, and we taste what we think we should.

Portion control

Much research has demonstrated the many linked factors affecting portion size and food intake. Some eating does occur in response to biological signals, such as hunger, but most eating occurs more in response to psychological factors such as emotions, and our interpretation of our surroundings, hence some people prefer fewer high-quality items than a larger volume of lower quality items.

Tableware

You will also be shocked to hear that the tableware we use influences the way we experience the food we eat. Researchers from the University of Oxford contributed data to the growing body of evidence that the colour, size, weight, and shape of eating utensils, cups, and plates have a big influence on what we taste.

For example, “red could be used to serve food to people who need to reduce their food intake, but should certainly not be used for those who are underweight”, the team wrote in the journal,