New Study: People Eat More Vegetables If They Don't Think It's Health Food

If you are wondering how to get your family to eat more vegetables, the new study from Stanford University in the United States might be just what you need: the research found that people eat more vegetable-based meals when they are described in language usually reserved for indulgent dishes and junk food.

Here's how the study was conducted: Each day, one of the vegetable dishes in the university dining hall received one of the following labels: basic ("green bean and onion dish"), healthy restrictive ("low-fat green bean and onion dish"), healthy positive ("healthy invigorating green bean and onion dish"), and indulgent ("sweet sizzlin' green beans and crispy onions"). It goes without saying that the dish was prepared in the exact same way each day, and researchers measured how many students opted to taste it each time.

The result: The indulgent label led to a 25% increase in the number of people who chose to eat the green beans compared to the basic label ("green beans and onions"). The difference was even more pronounced compared to the "healthy" labels: 35% more people chose the indulgent label compared to the healthy-positive label, and 41% more compared to the healthy-restrictive label. Additionally, researchers found: "A label with indulgent terms led to a 23% increase in the amount of vegetables eaten compared to the basic label and a 33% increase compared to the healthy-restrictive label."

In short, if you want to feed your family more vegetables—planning the menu is the easy part. The hard part is finding enticing names that will convince everyone that it's an indulgent treat and not, heaven forbid, healthy food. For added inspiration, here are some more "indulgent" names researchers attached to vegetable dishes: "Tangy seasoned red beets with a chili burst," "Curly squash bites with garlic and ginger," "Sweet roasted corn in rich butter," and "Caramelized slow-roasted zucchini slices."