Want a tasty meal? Try rotating your plate!

ROTATING your plate so your food points away from you can improve the taste of your food, psychologists have claimed.

Researchers asked people to turn a dish made by Alberto Landgraf, a Michelin-starred chef from Brazil, until it reached their preferred orientation.

They found that most diners prefer their meal to be facing away from them, and pointing marginally to the right.

The study, published in the journal Food Quality and Preference, found that we actually think the food tastes better when the alignment is correct.

Lead researcher Charles Michel, from Oxford University, said many people instinctively adjust their plate when it is in front of them.

He added: ‘This everyday action that some of us do might hint at the fact that we all enjoy our food more when it is “oriented” in the best way possible. Indeed, by arranging the food to “look bet-

‘We enjoy our food more’

ter”, we might be unconsciously enhancing its perceived value, and hence our enjoyment of it.’

Experimental psychologist Professor Charles Spence, who contributed to the paper, said the instinct is rooted in early human evolution. ‘Something pointing towards us triggers brain-fear circuits, and this is why it might be liked less,’ Professor Spence said.

He added: ‘What we see automatically sets expectations which anchor our subsequent experience when we come to taste – hence what we see really can change what we taste.’

Professor Spence’s previous work has established that a heavier glass makes a gin and tonic taste better and that a fine dining cloth will improve the flavour of a meal. He has also discovered that a plastic blue spoon can make food taste more salty, while white spoons make food taste creamier and black spoons make it taste less sweet.