By Garth Johnston
Professor Brian Wansink explains why we eat more than we think
Professor Brian Wansink at Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab.
Courtesy of Cornell University
Can a noisy restaurant make you drink more – or less? What's the psychology behind menu wordings? The man with the answers is Brian Wansink, a Cornell University professor in charge of that school's Food and Brand Lab, who released a book last October synthesizing his years of food and eating research into an easily digestible format. The result is Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, which came out in paperback on August 28th.
In study after study, Wansink demonstrates that our perceptions of food are largely influenced by external cues, from the size of a serving bowl (the bigger it is, the more we eat), to a menu item's description (the fancier it is, the better the dish will taste), to the company we keep (we consume more with a companion than alone).
Dr. Wansink recently took time out of his schedule to talk to Zagat Buzz about mindless eating and its impact on our diets, our dining experiences, even our public health policies.
Zagat Buzz: In your discussion of the impact of menu descriptions in Mindless Eating, you point out that “Grandma’s Zucchini Cookies” will not only sell better than regular “Zucchini Cookies” but consumers will say they taste better. Do restaurants ever ask your lab with assistance in writing up menus?
Brian Wansink: In a word, no. Because that’s not what the Lab is for. However, we’ve analyzed the names of foods in over 14,000 menus and for the most part they can be broken into four different categories.
Geographic labels are one. Like I was in a restaurant last night that had "Tuscan fries" – and what the heck are Tuscan fries? – so that would be a geographic indicator. So could "European-style green beans." Second would be sensory labels like "juicy," "plump" or "succulent." Things like that. Third would be traditional, or equity, labels like "old-fashioned," "old world," "homemade" or "grandma’s." Fourth would be things that try to appropriate another brand, like "Snickers pie."
A lot of times restaurants will call us and then use those templates to build their menus.
ZB: And in those 14,000 menus, what were the most egregious descriptors you found?
BW: When they name dishes after people, that’s when the really egregious stuff happens. Like when you get a dish named after a woman – possibly the wife, possibly not – with something very amorous associated with it. Like “Judy’s succulent whatever” and it just makes you go “ugh.”
Because these restaurants are these owners' babies, they don’t often realize that a dish named after a person, if you aren’t a regular, can just sound bizarre. Like "Baby Mama’s Veggies" – we actually saw that one on a specials sheet down in Memphis.
ZB: Given the power of labeling, were you surprised by the recent study that found children preferred foods like carrots when packaged with McDonald's wrappings?
BW: No, not at all. There are two really powerful things going on there they didn’t even measure. One, there is a guarantee anytime you have something that is branded. McDonald's or Fig Newtons, people are going to like it more because it is a guaranteed product with a multibillion dollar company behind it saying “this is acceptable.”
The second thing is the relationship people have with McDonald's. This is the place where Happy Meals come from! I’ve never eaten at McDonald’s and been depressed, even as an adult. Every time I go there it makes me smile, let alone when you take your two-year-old daughter there. If you had called them “SpongeBob SquarePants Carrots” it would have the exact same effect.
ZB: Your book talks about how no one is immune from these external cues – not even you. So what advice would you give to people who don't want to feel manipulated?
BW: One thing we suggest is that nobody wants to go to a restaurant with somebody who just whines about being on a diet. They just ruin everybody’s time. So one of the things we tell people is to enjoy eating, just don’t over do it. If what you really want is filet mignon, get it. You can take half of it home with you when you are done, but if you don’t it can really make for a downer of a meal for everybody.
The other piece of advice we like to give is the rule of two. There are a lot of ancillary items you can buy along with your main course. Appetizers, bread, desserts, drinks and so on. We tell people you can have any two items you want besides your main course, but that’s it. You want an appetizer and a drink? Fine, no bread. You want a second glass of wine? Fine, but don’t get anything else. We find that it actually really empowers people.
ZB: Speaking of ancillary products, do people really not remember the bread they ate when you approach them after dinner?
BW: Definitely. For most, it’s an almost subconscious activity. Especially when you look at everything else that happens during a meal. Often people will start off saying they aren’t going to eat any bread – so in their mind they made the decision not to eat bread. But then subsequently in conversation, or the middle of a salad, they’ll absentmindedly pick up a piece and eat it. And then when they’re done with the meal they will remember their decision not to eat bread and assume they didn’t.
ZB: Has your lab done any studies on noise levels in restaurants?
BW: Oh, yeah! We did a couple of them. In one... we took the normal ambient noise and magnified it through speakers. Then we tracked two things: The amount customers spent on food and alcohol and the amount of time they spent at the table.
If I remember correctly, the average for dinner is about an hour and fifteen minutes without the noise, but a little bit over an hour with. So it can help a restaurant turn tables to have a noisy restaurant.
But here’s where things really backfire: The amount that people spend on food was really similar in both cases, though it trended a little more when it wasn’t noisy – about two dollars more. But if it was not noisy a restaurant makes a lot more on alcohol. We were finding the average bill for alcohol was about 40 percent higher if it was a quiet place instead of a noisy place. People wanted to stick around longer and socialize.
ZB: To move to a hot topic for food-types these days, what do you think of trans-fat bans?
BW: The question is: Is it really going to change what people do? Like with product labeling. Most of what we’ve seen is that it doesn’t really have much of an impact and sometimes it can change people for the worse. It can lead them to put a health halo around a product to the point where they begin inferring a whole lot more health benefits to a product than it actually has.
Like “oh, this is no trans fat, or this is low fat, therefore it must be lower in calories.” No!
ZB: Finally, are calorie counts on menus effective in encouraging healthier dining habits?
BW: It depends on how it’s done. Sometimes it can be very off-putting. We’re currently in the middle of a study in New York City with 100-calorie packages [since previous studies have shown that the larger the portion size, the more we tend to consume, some companies have begun selling snacks in smaller 100-calorie packages] and we’ve done pre-studies in four national chains but we don’t have too much information on that yet.