7 Ways to Make Things Taste Better (with Zero Extra Effort)
Here's what a few unusual taste perception experiments found about getting more bang for your bite.
By Jena Pincott
Start with an Instagram Appetizer
Before digging into, say, your blandish bean soup, look at a photo of something mouth-watering. Pizza, pastries, lamb chops, whatever, as long as it's highly caloric. Afterward, your humble meal may taste better than it would otherwise. Yes, really—at least if there's anything to a Swiss study that found that people enjoyed neutral flavors more after viewing pictures of fatty, flaky, crispy or gooey foods than after looking at low-calorie options such as yogurt and watermelon. The mere sight of fattening chow stimulated stronger activity in brain areas that evaluate pleasure—especially the orbitofrontal cortex—which made a subsequent taste seem better than it really was (a delicious illusion).
Published 09/18/2013