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Battle of the Senses II : Tableware
Publish Date : 1395/5/23 Time 16:13:09

flavourjournal
Battle of the Senses II : Tableware

In our blog post, Battle of the Senses: Tasting Flavor, we discussed how altering the sensory attributes of food can change our perception of its taste.  Remember how smelling sweet strawberries before drinking plain water made the water taste sweet?  So, what if we change the properties of the tableware (i.e. plates and utensils), instead of the food itself?

Well, researchers from the University of Oxford report in the Flavor Journal that the color, shape, size, and weight of tableware affect the perception of flavor.  The study focused on rating the sweetness, saltiness, perceived value, and overall liking of food tasted from various plastic utensils. Results show all of these aspects have an effect on our taste perception.

Photo courtesy of flavourjournal.com.

The results

When eating with a light weight spoon, people believed yogurt was denser and more expensive.  Eating from large light-weight spoons led to a greater perception of sweetness, as did small heavy-weight spoons.  The color of spoons also had an effect, as eating from blue spoons led participants to perceive a saltier taste, while using white spoons led to a perceived sweeter taste.  As for the shape of cutlery, eating from an unusual utensil like a knife produced a greater perception of saltiness than when food was eaten from a fork, spoon, or toothpick.

What does it mean?

Just as the previous Battle of the Sense article suggested, emotions and experiences can have a substantial effect on our perception of flavors.  The researchers from Oxford explain in the report that most salty snacks sold in the U.K. have blue packaging, which could account for the salty perception when eating from a blue utensil.  They also mentioned that cheese shops often serve samples on a knife, which could explain the link between knives and salty foods.

Overall, this experiment shows the importance of tableware on the effect of taste.  Restaurants and food companies can use this to their advantage in drawing more appeal to their products and product samples.  The results could help consumers subconsciously make healthier choices to eat more or less just by altering the color, shape, or size of their utensils.  Our experience with food is multisensory in that the look, texture, and smell all affect the overall taste we perceive.

What do you think about these results?  Have you experienced a difference in taste due to the color, shape, size, or weight of your eating utensil? We’re interested to hear your comments below.

The Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the United States (FEMA) was founded in 1909 and is the national association of the U.S. flavor industry.  FEMA’s membership is comprised of flavor manufacturers, flavor users, flavor ingredient suppliers, and others with an interest in the U.S. flavor industry.  The association is committed to ensuring a safe supply of flavor ingredients used in foods and beverages enjoyed by billions of men, women, and children around the world.