When planning your meals and snacks, considering the color of the food you eat could make an important difference in your health. Consuming a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables is essential, as each contains valuable natural compounds that give the food its unique color and contribute to the body’s ability to fight off illnesses. But it’s not just about fruits and vegetables. The color of other foods, their packaging, and even the plates and cutlery used can influence your food choices.
The power of colorful marketing
Food companies employ researchers to run focus groups and test marketing projects to figure out the best way to make you buy and eat their high-profit, low-nutrition foods. Studies by Brian Wansink from Cornell University demonstrate how hidden cues can shape what we eat and how much we consume.
One study compared how shifting the varieties of colors in junk food changed people’s eating habits. Wansink found that if jellybeans are offered in six different colors and flavors, people eat about 70% more when the colors are mixed together in a single bowl than they consume when the colors are divided into separate bowls. And the more colors there are, the more food gets eaten. For example, people offered ten different colors of M&Ms eat 43% more compared to when they’re offered seven colors.
This research suggests that perceived variety can influence the amount of food we eat. And it’s not just about the food itself. The appearance of our plates and cutlery can also have an impact on our eating habits.
How plates and cutlery can influence food choices
Wansink’s research shows that eating in high contrast — such as food with red sauce on a white plate or an entrée with white sauce on a red plate — can lead us to eat less, about 20% less food compared to eating low contrast (like white sauce on a white plate or red sauce on a dark plate). Additionally, larger plates can lead us to consume more food than we would if we used smaller plates.
With hidden persuaders lurking in supermarket aisles and fast-food restaurants, even the most health-conscious consumers can make poor food choices and eat more than they intended. As technology becomes more advanced, food labs could potentially use machines to scan people’s brains, measuring the effects of different marketing messages and packaging designs on our neurons.
Stick to the paleo diet for fewer hidden cues
One solution to avoiding the influence of food advertisers is sticking to the basics, such as consuming more paleo diet-friendly foods. A paleo diet can help you make metabolic choices with less input from food advertisers by preparing most meals from scratch and avoiding processed foods. By doing so, you’ll not only avoid persuasive marketing pitches from large food companies, but you’ll also enjoy a healthier diet with an abundance of fruits, vegetables, and other natural, unprocessed food choices.
