If you’ve got picky eaters at your table for the holidays, steer clear of the color red.
As festive as it is, red dishware wards off fussy eaters, and they’re less likely to eat the meal if it’s served in anything red, researchers from the University of Portsmouth found.
A study published in the journal Food Quality and Preference looked at how color affects picky and non-picky eaters.
The 50 participants, divided into two groups, were studied based on their food “neophobia,” or hesitation to try new food. Researchers placed the same salt and vinegar chips into red, white and blue bowls, closely watching the groups to see how they would react.
“Picky eating is characterized by a limited intake and avoidance of foods which can increase health risks, including nutritional deficiencies and health-related disease,” the researchers explained in the study. “It is therefore important to understand the factors that act to ‘push and pull’ such picky eating behavior.”
Their analysis found that participants’ desire to eat the crunchy snack was impacted by which bowl the chips were presented in. This was especially so among the pickiest of eaters, who claimed the chips were saltier in the blue and red bowls. In fact, the red bowl ranked last when it came to desirability.
“It is possible that people have negative mediated expectations when seeing the color red,” the researchers wrote.
Red is often seen as the color of passion — whether it’s love, anger, war or courage — but such a strong association could deter individuals from the punchy hue altogether.
The study authors assumed the eaters’ perceptions of the color red could influence their decision to eat food served in red dishes, perhaps thinking the food is “less desirable.”
“Our study is the first to provide an insight into the relationship between color and taste in picky eaters,” Dr. Lorenzo Stafford, the lead author of the study, told the Daily Mail. “Since picky eating can be stressful for both the individual and family relations, these findings offer preliminary evidence for how color might help enhance the food eating experiences.”