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(HealthNewsDigest.com) – No earbuds, no music, and no watching TV while you eat. Researchers are learning that the noise your food makes can have a significant effect on how much you eat. Sounds crazy – no pun intended, but it is called the Crunch Effect. If you are aware of the sound your food makes while you eat, you are likely to eat less.
Both the average person and those doing food research have overlooked sound as an important sensory cue in the eating experience. Sound is the forgotten flavor sense. When you eat, you see, feel, taste and then get the flavor of a food. But you are also hearing your food. Try to eat a potato chip without its characteristic crunch and most would perceive the chips as stale. When researchers manipulated the sound of fresh chips to take away the crunch, people rated the fresh chips as stale and tasteless. Sounds that are generated while biting into or chewing food provide a rich source of information about the food we are eating. Think crispy, crunchy, crackly, creamy or fizzy.
Crispness and pleasantness are highly connected. Crispness is associated with fresh fruits and vegetable. Lettuce must be crisp to taste good. You don’t taste crisp, you hear it. Crispy foods give off high-frequency sounds. Chips are always rated as good when they are crispy. Pringles are known for making a lot of noise (1.9 kHz and above when crushed). Research has demonstrated that people eat less when the sound of food is more intense. Participants that wore headphones while eating a crispy snack, ate more. Those who could hear their food ate less.
Researchers at the University of Leeds showed that the crunching sound was needed for subjects to rate bacon as delicious tasting. Bacon with little sound was rated as less flavorful. Crackly foods are typically identified by the sharp sudden and repeated burst of noise they make when you eat them. Think of the sounds made when munching on raw carrots or biting into an apple or eating pork cracklings. Even their name tells you what sound to expect.
The fizz of carbonation plays an important role in our satisfaction with many drinks. Even plain water that is carbonated is often described as more appealing and flavorful. If carbonation sounds are louder or the bubbles pop more frequently, people rate the drink as tasting better. SodaStream, a home carbonation system, allows you to adjust the level of carbonation to your individual taste. You are actually adjusting the sound of your drink because carbonation only adds fizz not flavor.
Even seemingly silent foods make a sound, if you listen. Your brain picks up subtle auditory cues when your spoon cuts through cheesecake, mousse, pudding or ice cream. Coating your mouth with creaminess makes foods sound slightly different.
Food ads often enhance the sound of foods to make them more appealing. Pop a soda can and hear the fizz. Tortilla chips crunch loudly. A Dutch crisp brand took things even further. To suggest how flavorful and crispy their product was it appeared to crack the viewer’s screen when eaten during the commercial. Food companies are well aware that food sounds sell. Rice Krispies have always been known for their snap, crackle and pop. Cheetos used the slogan — the cheese that goes crunch. Food and drink companies are very interested in the sounds their foods make when eaten. When a person eats a food the perceived hardness/softness, moistness/dryness, and pleasantness of that food is modified by sound. Remove the sound and food becomes less appealing.
When you mask the sound of eating by watching TV or listening to music through earbuds, you take away an important cue which may cause you to eat too much. The effect of muting food sounds may not be huge – just one of two extra pretzels or another handful of chips – but over the course of a week, month or year, it could really add up. So the next time you eat, pull out you earbuds and listen to your food.
© NRH Nutrition Consultants, Inc.
Jo-Ann Heslin, MA, RD, CDN is a registered dietitian and the author of 30 books. Available as eBooks from iTunes and Kindle/Amazon:
Diabetes Counter
Calorie Counter
Protein Counter
Healthy Wholefoods Counter
Complete Food Counter
Fat and Cholesterol Counter
Available in print from Gallery Books:
Most Complete Food Counter, 3rd Ed.
Your Complete Food Counter App: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/your-complete-food-counter/id444558777?mt=8
For more information on Jo-Ann and her books, go to: www.TheNutritionExperts.com.
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