Renaming makes you try eating the same old dish

There’s lot in a name. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine says that students would rather eat ‘slow-roasted cara melised zucchini bites’ than just plain ‘zucchini’, even when both dishes are prepared the same way.

Researchers watched 27,933 customers over 46 days in a college cafeteria, of whom 8,279 selected vegetables.

Most of the diners were undergraduates, but about 1/3rd were graduate students and 15% were staff members.

On different days, their choice varied from beets, corn, green beans, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, zucchini, carrots, or bok choy with mushrooms.

Each day, the experimenters varied the names of the dishes to create a different gustatory impression. ‘Carrots’ became the healthful but stern ‘carrots with sugar-free citrus dressing’ one day.

The next day it was mutated into the still health-conscious but more friendly ‘smart-choice vitamin C citrus carrots,’ and finally achieved metamorphosis as ‘twisted citrus-glazed carrots.’

Renaming a sweet potato dish to ‘zesty ginger-turmeric sweet potatoes’ resulted in 25% more people choosing the vegetable.

But 35% more customers chose the zesty label than the health-positive ‘wholesome sweet potato superfood,’ and 41% more chose it than the scolding ‘cholesterol-free sweet potatoes.’

‘We’re trying to get people to eat healthier, but we’re going about it all wrong by trying to make people eat healthy by touting health claims,’ author Alia Crum, psychology professor at Stanford.

If you want a kid to eat his veggies, it’s much better to call them ‘sweet sizzlin’ green beans and crispy shallots’ or ‘rich buttery roasted sweet corn.’

There’s lot in a name…looks like, at least when it comes to food!