Study: Heavier Utensils Makes Food Seem Tastier
If healthy foods taste bland, try using a heavy, high-quality spoon or fork to boost the flavor. Researchers at Oxford University have found that using a stainless steel spoon in place of a plastic one gives you the impression that your food is more flavorful.
In the study, subjects ate two identical samples of vanilla yogurt, each with a different spoon. When asked to rate their liking on a scale from 1 to 9, the yogurt eaten with the stainless steel spoon scored 5.5, while the plastic earned a 4.6. Study author Betina Piqeuras-Fiszman, a Ph.D. student at Oxford, explains how this work:
“People are used to eating with stainless steel spoons in higher quality restaurants, whereas plastic spoons are more associated with fast food. If you associate a spoon with higher quality it affects the taste of the food that you are eating,”
