Cutlery Appearance Can Influence Perception of A Food's Taste, Study Finds

Cutlery appearance like its shape, color and weight can influence how food tastes, researchers found in a new study.

In a strange discovery, researchers from the University of Oxford found that the cutlery used while eating a food item directly impacts the taste of the food as well as the whole eating experience. Researchers found that people often feel food tastes saltier when eaten with a knife, and denser and more expensive from a light plastic spoon. It's not just the shape of the cutlery but also its color that impacts this perception.

Crockery in which a dish or beverage is served also plays a similar role. Beverages served in cold colored glasses were perceived to be more refreshing while the shape and color of the plate a dish was served in governed  how dense, sweet or salty a person perceived that dish to be.

"How we experience food is a multisensory experience involving taste, feel of the food in our mouths, aroma, and the feasting of our eyes. Even before we put food into our mouths our brains have made a judgment about it, which affects our overall experience," Dr Vanessa Harrar and Prof Charles Spence, who performed this study, explain in a press statement.

To further confirm their findings, authors of the study looked into different aspects of a person's food experience with respect to the crockery and cutlery used and chose yogurt as the food item in the study. They found that when yogurt was eaten with a plastic spoon, people found it to be denser and more expensive. Also, when people ate white yogurt with a white spoon, they said the yogurt was sweeter, more liked and more expensive than pink yogurt which they ate with a white spoon. However, when the same yogurt was eaten with a black spoon, people preferred the pink yogurt to the white one, confirming the authors' earlier finding, which suggested color contrasts play a major role in people's perception of food taste.

Harrar suggested that the findings of this study could be used to help control eating patterns such as portion size or how much salt is added to food. Also, people may be able to make better food choices if their ingrained color associations are disrupted by less constant advertising and packaging.