Have you ever noticed that the way you eat and drink can affect appetite and cognition? In fact, several studies have shown how the color of dishes can lead to noticeably different dining experiences and enjoyment. Just think of how you feel when you stroll through a market that's bursting with bright colors.
In this blog article we will take a closer look at the topic and find out how big the impact a certain color can have.
How color can affect appetite
According to an article from klar.ch, colors such as red, orange and yellow are said to stimulate the appetite, while green and yellow foods are associated with acidity. For this reason, supermarkets and food brands use such colors to expose their customers to different stimuli. The lighting in a market also plays a major role.
Unlike the color of the food, the color of the plate can inhibit appetite. Several studies show that, among other things, a red plate makes food appear unappetizing. Subjects in a Swiss study would eat almost twice as many pretzels from a white or blue plate as from a red one. This is due to the fact that red is associated with danger: the plate therefore serves as a stop sign.
Another study shows that red dishes only have a negative effect on the consumption of unhealthy food. Test subjects would have chosen significantly more green pieces of bread from a plate with pieces of white flour marked in green and red.
The important thing here is that this inhibition was reduced in semi-whole wheat bread and completely eliminated in whole wheat bread. This shows that the color red appears to only be considered an appetite suppressant when the given food is considered unhealthy.
How color can affect taste
Although the red dishes in the study mentioned above suppressed the subjects' appetite without changing taste, other studies have shown how color can affect taste.
For example , sweet food tastes much saltier when served on blue dishes . According to a study, pink-colored natural yogurt, which is actually relatively tasteless, tastes significantly saltier from a blue spoon than from a white spoon.
According to Harrar et al . (2011), sweet popcorn tastes saltier from a blue bowl than from a green, red or white bowl. In comparison, salty popcorn from a blue or red bowl tastes sweeter. Although the difference between these perceptions was relatively small, it was considered statistically reliable.
How color affects the taste of drinks
In addition to food, color also influences the taste of drinks. In 2012 , Piqueras-Fiszman and Spence researched the connection between the color of a cup and the perception of the drink it contains. They found that hot chocolate from a vending machine tasted much tastier when drunk from an orange cup than from the white or red one.
Drinks from a jug can also be perceived differently. In the study, test subjects from North America tried 4 cups of coffee from 4 different pots - brown, red, blue and yellow.
The coffee served from the red pot received the best reviews from women, who found it rich and full-bodied. 73% found the coffee from the brown pot too strong. The coffee from the blue and yellow pots was perceived to be milder and weaker.
Important to mention: The coffee in the 4 pots was in fact completely identical.
Conclusion: What have we learned?
We didn't expect this new knowledge about color. Did you know that color can have such a significant effect on our taste and appetite? Although red generally stimulates the desire to eat, it acts as an appetite suppressant as soon as the food is served on a red plate. However, this only applies to unhealthy food.
Colors can also make your food and drinks taste sweeter or saltier, even if nothing extra has been added.
So it can be said: the implicit color connotations in your brain are so anchored that they have a strange influence on the taste experience when eating and drinking.
So keep that in mind next time your yogurt tastes a little saltier than expected because of your blue spoon...
