Study Finds Instagramming Photos of Your Food Can Make it Taste Better

Go into any popular restaurant in the city and take a look around.

Chances are you’ll see at least one person taking a picture of their perfectly presented Eggs Benny before they eat it. #brunch

And although society likes to mock the brave diners who stand on their chairs to take the perfect picture, or roll their eyes at the people who fill their social media feeds with #foodporn and #cleaneats photos, these people might actually be onto something.

A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Marketing has found that creating “consumer-generated images,” the pictures people take of their food, is more likely to cause an increase in enjoyment of the meal.

The main reason this happens is because taking a photo of a meal before eating it delays consumption. So stopping to snap a pic of your juicy burger before taking a bite will actually make it taste that much better when you finally get to chow down. The study also found that looking at photos of healthy foods will also encourage people to eat healthier as well.

To reach this conclusion the researchers conducted three studies, each with 120 participants.

In the first study, participants were given either a slice of red velvet cake or a fruit salad and told they had the option of taking a picture of the food. They found that the people who took a photo of the red velvet cake thought it tasted better than the people who didn’t — those who took a photo of the fruit salad didn’t experience a change in perception.

The second study found that people who were told that the cake was made of glutenous materials rather than fat-free enjoyed it more, despite both slices being made of the same thing.

The final study proved to be the most revealing as it demonstrated that people had a higher evaluation of healthy foods, once becoming aware that other people were eating nutritiously. In other words, scrolling through the #cleaneats hashtag on Instagram is actually benefiting you more than you think.

So the next time you’re out for brunch and you question whether you should stop to take a photo before diving into your meal, remember that giving your food a little Insta-worthy love will actually make it taste that much better.

[ad_bb1]