Organic food labels 'trick' us into thinking food is healthier and tastier
Perceptions of taste, calories and value can be significantly altered
when a food is labelled 'organic'Organic foods were estimated to have
significantly fewer calories and taste lower in fat
Customers were also willing to pay 23% more for them
Putting an organic label on ordinary
foods can trick shoppers into believing that they are healthier, taste
better and have fewer calories, new research suggests.
Known as the 'health halo effect', previous studies have shown that we perceive
foods labelled as organic to be healthier.
Now, scientists at New York’s Cornell University have
found the label can influence much more than health views - perceptions
of taste, calories and value can be significantly altered
when a food is labelled 'organic'.
Putting an organic label on ordinary foods can
trick shoppers into believing that they are healthier, taste better and
have fewer calories
They recruited 115 people were recruited from a local shopping centre to
participate in the study.
Participants were asked to evaluate three pairs of products: two yogurts, two
cookies and two bags of crisps.
One item from each food pair was labelled 'organic', while the other was
labelled 'regular'.
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What they didn't realise was that each of the product pairs were organic and
identical. The
volunteers were asked to rate the taste and calorie content of each
item, and how much they would be willing to pay for the items.
A questionnaire also inquired about their environmental and shopping
habits.Even though the foods were all the same, the 'organic' label greatly
influenced people’s perceptions.
Volunteers who thought certain types of yogurt
and cookies were organic estimated them to have significantly fewer
calories and people willing to pay up to 23 per cent more for them
The cookies and yogurt were estimated
to have significantly fewer calories when labeled 'organic' and people
were willing to pay up to 23.4 per cent more for them.
The nutritional aspects of these foods were also greatly biased by the 'health
halo' effect, the researchers found.
The
'organic' cookies and yogurt were said to taste ‘lower in fat than the
regular variety, and the 'organic' cookies and crisps were thought to be
more nutritious.The label
even tricked people’s taste buds: when perceived as 'organic', crisps
seemed more appetising and yogurt was judged to be more flavorful.
Conversely, 'regular' cookies were reported to taste better-possibly because
people often believe healthy foods are not tasty.
But the researchers found that people
who regularly read nutrition labels, those who regularly buy organic
food, and those who recycling are less susceptible to the organic
‘health halo’ effect
