To choose wisely when eating out, make sure you order first

Click to listen to the audio…

Transcript of “How to avoid ordering cake for breakfast”

If you’re the first person to place the meal order when eating out, you’re choosing what you want to eat, if you’re not, there is a good chance you’re conforming.

I was recently invited out for a late “breakfast” – my culinary expectation of this rendezvous, was some kind of cooked breakfast. The waitress handed out the menus……..

I immediately headed for the breakfast category and began weighing up the eggy options, considering ..

My pleasure
The price
Nutrient ratios

What can I get you ?

The first order was placed.

“I will have a slice of the ….. cheese cake”.

After a moment silence, the next person placed their order.

“I want a slice of the coffee cake”.

Stunned, I scrambled to the “Cakes” section of the menu, feeling obligated to conform. Should I choose the cheese cake, the coffee cake, the chocolate cake ?

Eish.

Freedom to choose

The attraction of eating out – is CHOICE. You get to eat exactly WHAT YOU WANT ! And, as an added bonus, you don’t have to slave away in the hot kitchen preparing the meal, nor do you have to wash ALL those dishes.

But are YOU really choosing ?

A group of researchers from Oklahoma State University think not.

Decisions, decisions…

The team surreptitiously spied on patrons of a local restaurant, scrutinizing the meal choices of 1459 dinners over a 19 week period. The meal choices were tracked by analysing the restaurant bills, so patrons were unaware that they were being OBSERVED.

To make things a little more interesting, the restaurant was divided into three sections, each section received a slightly different version of the 51 item menu.

Section one – received a standard menu
Section two – received a menu which tallied up the calorie count of each dish
Section three – also received a menu with the calorie count, but this was further emphasized by a traffic light system which classified the food item, Green = low calorie item (less the 400 calories), Yellow = medium calorie item (between 401 and 800 calories) and Red = high calorie item (above 801 calories)

Choosing criteria

The team took the information from the restaurant bills and calculated a variety index, a measure of the patrons level of choice.

A table would receive a score of zero, if everyone at the table ordered exactly the same thing. A table would receive a score of one, if everyone at the table ordered differently. Numbers in between 0 and 1, reflect the overall variability in choices.

An interesting pattern emerged across all the menus. People did indeed order different items (0.701), but, they ordered them from the same category (0.443).

Restricted choosing ?

So did the calorie warnings make a difference ? Not really………

It is tough to order a salad, when everyone else is ordering a steak.

We want to be different, but at the same time we want to fit in, literally and figuratively.

Oops….. our food choices when eating out are more often than not, influenced by who we are eating with.

Choosing wisely

If you are watching your waist line, you do need to choose wisely.

STEP 1 – Choose who you eat out with, your friends may indeed be contributing to those extra pounds.

STEP 2 – Don’t be polite, don’t dither, when the waitron arrives to take your order, speak up.

The first person to order…………… sets the category. Everyone else must conform or make the decision to “stick out”. And sticking out, is NEVER easy.

PS. I opted for an omelette, everyone else had cake. Did I enjoy the girls “breakfast out” ? Let’s just say………….I wish I had chosen the cake. A cooked breakfast takes longer to prepare, longer to serve and longer to eat – so I was perpetually the odd man out at this breakfast. On the flip side, I know I ended up with better body chemistry and superior thinking.

Paper presented at the Agricultural and Applied Economic Association’s 2013 AAEA and CAES Joint Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C. Brenna Ellison, Jayson Lusk.

BBC

Small things can make a big difference to your health