Hey diddle diddle,

The Cat and the fiddle,

The Cow jumped over the moon.

The little Dog laughed,

To see such sport,

And the Dish ran away with the Spoon…..

Why ?

We ALL KNOW…the moon can influence the heart, but the moonlight just magnifies the inherent attraction. So on this fateful night, what create the spark between the dish and the spoon ?

Scientists from the University of Oxford believe the magic happened because, in the moonlight the spoon took on a different hue.

The altered colour of the spoon….. created the FATAL attraction.

The colour of your cutlery matters

The Oxford researchers asked several university students to help them, pick the best “tasting” yoghurt.

The students evaluated the yoghurt using a variety of parameters…..

• The density
• The “expensiveness”
• The sweetness
• The overall likeabilty

The CATCH………they were all tasting the SAME yoghurt, but in the taste tests, they were using different spoons. The colour, size and weight of the spoons was mixed up.

The spoon makes yoghurt taste different

The same yoghurt tasted different depending on the spoon used …

• A small spoon made it taste sweeter.
• A light spoon made the yogurt taste denser and more expensive.
• A black spoon made the yogurt not taste sweet at all, while a white spoon sweetened up the experience, especially when the yoghurt was white.

Pink yoghurt a bit of a flop

Pink-yoghurt did not receive a big thumbs up, period, it was regarded as less sweet, less dense and less expensive, even when eaten from a small white spoon.

Oops………

This does seem a bit odd, most commercial yoghurts include a generous splash of colour….

It seems, the thinking behind the flush of pink, courtesy of some “artificial” colouring, is to convince your taste buds they are bumping into strawberries, because strawberries are………pinkish. This deception, might mean the manufacturer is required to add a little more sugar to that pink yoghurt, to make it taste REAL GOOD. Oops… more calories !

So what does this mean if you’re weight watching and living with a sugar gremlin ? Which spoon should you use ?

Well first off, don’t be fooled by THE PINK. And secondly………….

Eat with a teaspoon

It seems our brain is wired to believe bites from a teaspoon taste sweeter. Probably because teaspoons are associated with dessert.

So…..use a teaspoon with your cereal, your yoghurt and your chocolate mousse. If you routinely eat with a teaspoon, you should create more moments of delight, which can keep your sugar gremlin happy.

And a happy sugar gremlin is a lot less likely to get up to mischief i.e. add three tablespoons of sugar to your bowl of cereal, to make it, sweet enough. Sweet enough, is unfortunately significantly less healthy. That said, if you’re going to PIG OUT, breakfast is the time to do it.

The other benefit of using a teaspoon as your go to piece of cutlery, is eating ANYTHING, will take longer. Teaspoons just don’t have the capacity of a normal spoon. Small delays in getting your food into you, provides the advantage because, the “I am full message” kicks in sooner, ensuring you don’t accidently overdo it.

Make it plastic too

Yuk…..

Eating yoghurt with a plastic spoon – is acceptable. The light weight of the spoon, creates the perception that the yoghurt is heavier, creamier………………. more expensive. But a bite of cereal is already pretty light……… adding a light weight spoon, emphasizes this.

By all means try munching your muesli with a tiny plastic spoon. For me, it feels cheap and nasty.

The spoon culture

The cutlery effect………. depends on the context and culture – which means you need to experiment.

But if you’re weight watching, this research reiterates the value of

USING A DIFFERENT SPOON !

.

Further reading

 

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