Observing Life: The truth about how food looks, what you get and how it tastes

Our subconscious is working overtime when it comes to what and how we eat.

I came across new research that shows people who eat expensive food believe it tastes better than the exact same meal offered at a lower price. Intrigued by the idea that taste could be influenced by how much a meal costs, I kept reading.

The researchers in this study offered an all-you-can-eat Italian buffet to people at a specific price point. They offered another set of people the exact same buffet, but for half the price. Neither group ate more than the other. Those who paid more enjoyed their meal 11 per cent more than those who paid less. The "cheap food" group also said they felt like they overate and reported guilty feelings about loading up their plate. How is this possible when they ate the exact same food?

At first, I thought there’s no way I would ever fall for this marketing trap. I could never be duped into believing a meal is better or worse because of what I paid for it.

And then it hit me. I do it all the time. If I’m stuck between two dishes on a menu, I almost always pick the one that’s a little more expensive, believing it must be a better option than the lower-priced alternative. Then I realised (to my horror) that I also do this in the hypermarket. I’ll choose the pricier fruits and veggies over cheaper versions of the same produce. I always go for the more expensive minced beef or chicken – no matter where it’s from. Pasta sauce? I’ll buy the one for Dh20, not Dh10. Every time.

I am who the consumer marketing teams dream about.

While I was wallowing in my food shallowness, I found another study from the University of Oxford that shows presenting food as if it were a masterpiece convinces people it's more flavourful. In this study, researchers offered diners one of three salads. One salad was simply tossed together. Another was neatly arranged on a plate and a third version resembled the artist Wassily Kandinsky's Painting Number 201. The salads had the exact same ingredients, but the artistic salad was rated the best (by a margin of nearly 20 per cent) and diners were willing to pay twice as much for it.

Are we really that easy to fool?

To make that question easier to answer (the answer is yes), I found yet another study that shows how superficial elements influence human behaviour: people who eat in dim lighting consume 175 calories less than those who eat in bright light. Finally, some news I can use.

My takeaway from all of this should be to stop judging food before I taste it. That’s what should happen. But if my brain tells me I’m enjoying my food more just by paying a little more, do I want to change that? If I believe a Picasso-inspired salad is better than throwing together my own mess of greens off the salad bar, is that so wrong? I love food and I want to love it. I don’t want to like it less.

But I would like to eat less.

So tonight, for dinner, I'm going to grill up a really expensive steak and spend 30 minutes putting together a salad that looks like Van Gogh's Starry Night. Then I'm going to eat it in the dark.