If the color of the plate affects the taste? A study conducted in the Department of Psychology at the University of Portsmouth in the UK revealed fascinating insights into the relationship between color and taste perception – especially in picky eaters.
Picky eating is a fairly common phenomenon. Not every foodie or stubborn child is picky. Pickiness is expressed in limited food consumption and avoidance of new foods. The concern with picky eating is that this pattern may lead to significant nutritional deficiencies and health problems such as heart disease and osteoporosis, in addition to other difficulties that may arise such as tensions in the family, social struggles and more.
In a study in which 47 adults participated, of which 20 were picky eaters and 27 were not, the researchers offered each participant identical chips. The snacks were served on three different colored plates: red, blue and white. The results were surprising – the color of the plate had a significant effect on the perception of taste, but only among the picky eaters.
For the picky eaters, the exact same snack was perceived as saltier when served on the blue and red plates compared to the white plates. Not only that, when the snack was served on the red plate, the participants reported less desire to eat it. In contrast, in the non-picky participants, the color of the plate did not affect the taste perception at all.
What color can do
Why is this important? Beyond the health consequences, picky eating also has significant social effects. Family meals, which are supposed to cause pleasure and closeness, often become a source of stress and anxiety. Picky eaters may feel ashamed or pressured to eat certain foods. The researchers propose a creative and simple way that may affect the eating experience and may even help in expanding the variety of foods: changing the color of the serving utensils. “This is not a whim,” the researchers emphasize. “Color has a real effect on the perception of taste and the desire to eat.”
Another study, which reinforces these results, was conducted at the University of Australia. The exact same coffee was perceived as sweeter when served in clear blue cups compared to white cups. In another case, a strawberry dessert was experienced as tastier when served on a white, round plate as opposed to a dark, square plate.
These studies open a window for a better understanding of the factors that influence picky eating. While most of the previous studies focused mainly on the effects of smell and texture on the perception of food, the new findings also emphasize the importance of color as an influencing factor.
And so, the next time you hear someone insisting on a plate of a certain color – remember that it has a scientific basis. Sometimes small changes can lead to significant results.
Giving the picky person a choice of plate color can increase their sense of control and reduce anxiety. When you find a color that works well with a certain food, it is recommended to maintain consistency and continue using it. It is important to remember that this is a long-term process – changes in eating habits take time, and adjusting the colors of the serving utensils is just one of the tools that can help along the way.
The eyes taste before the tongue
But the effect of color on our eating experience is much more complex. The four familiar tastes – sweet, sour, salty and bitter – and also umami, the fifth, proteinaceous, less familiar taste, are only part of our eating experience. In fact, the taste begins long before the food touches the tongue. Studies show that a large part of cortical activity is devoted to processing visual stimuli – much more than taste stimuli. So that before the food enters the mouth, the eyes have already scanned it and conveyed a clear message to the brain: it is tasty or not.
The connection between color and taste is not innate, but acquired during life. In the past, the color of foods in nature was a reliable indicator of freshness and ripeness. Today the situation is different – the food companies make good use of this and add food coloring to influence our perception of taste. They use food coloring to create an impression of freshness and quality, from ultra-processed food in bags to fresh fruits and vegetables.
Adding a red tint to the skin of an apple, for example, can make us think it’s sweeter, even if the taste hasn’t changed at all. And here is the place to clarify, some think that a green and sour apple contains less sugar than a red and sweet apple, but the reason is an ingredient that masks the sweet taste in the green apple and not a higher amount of sugar in the red apple. So in practice both apples, if they are of a similar size, have a similar amount of sugar.
Studies show how much color affects our perception of taste. For example, when people were asked to drink two identical sweet drinks – one clear and one red – most claimed that the red drink was sweeter, even though they were exactly the same. Whereas when they tasted the same drinks blindfolded, they couldn’t tell any difference.
The effect of color on the perception of taste is so strong that even experts are not immune to it. In a study conducted at Cornell University in New York, it was discovered that even skilled milk tasters had difficulty distinguishing between different levels of fat in milk when they could not see its color. It turns out that the “shades” of white affect more than the sense of taste itself.
Blue: the rarest color in nature
A particularly interesting case is the blue color in food. There are almost no blue foods in nature – except for blueberries and a limited number of rare fruits and vegetables. In the past, blue color in food was seen as a sign of toxicity. Today, thanks to the activities of the food companies, we naturally receive blue drinks and sweets, even though it is a color that hardly exists in nature.
All this proves that the eyes are an integral part of our digestive system. They don’t just see the food – they taste it even before it reaches the mouth.