1. Decadent descriptions make healthy choices boom
The traditional thinking behind menu labeling assumes that the more information people have about their food, including calorie counts, the healthier choices they’ll make. But research shows that’s not the case, says Jackie Bertoldo, senior manager of nutrition, performance and wellness at Stanford University. An experiment at the Palo Alto, Calif., school’s dining halls tested a variety of descriptions for the same vegetable dish over the course of a semester; those labeled with indulgent descriptions were chosen 25% more often than those without.
The study also found a significant decrease in selection if a dish had healthy labels. So operators should brainstorm with their chefs to come up with catchy names and delicious descriptions, Bertoldo says, keeping in mind things like the emotions they want the dish to elicit, what senses it should excite and how it was cooked.