7 Disturbing Ways Restaurants Trick Your Taste Buds

One of these sort of works in your favor—the rest are just unsettling.

How's your meal? If you restaurant is using any of these common tactics, you'll probably think it tastes a whole lot better than it really is. And unfortunately, most of the time these tactics aren't used to make you think foods like broccoli or lean protein are more flavorful than they actually are—they're primarily used to jazz up cheap and often unhealthy ingredients. Check out the sly ways restaurants trick your taste buds, often wrecking your healthy-eating efforts.

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Colorful names like "succulent," "homestyle," and "satin," don't just draw you in, they actually make you think the foods are tastier. In one study published in Food Quality and Preference, when diners ate the same foods but with different names, the people whose foods came with descriptive monikers rated the foods as being tastier.

Piping Smells Into the Air

Your tastebuds do matter, but most of your sense of "taste" is actually "smell," according to the University of Rochester. Just think about how everything tastes "blah" when you're stuffed up. So to make foods pack more yummy flavors, restaurants add scents. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reports that some restaurants have switched their bakers from night to day shifts so the place smells like bread. Meanwhile, some eateries diffuse essential oils into the air, while others enlist the services of companies like ScentAir to replace a food's natural smell or enhance the real thing.

Putting Lots of Colors on Your Plate

The prettier a food looks, the more scrumptious we think it tastes. For instance, in one Journal of Consumer Researchstudy, when college students were given bowls of M&M's, those who received 10 colors ate 77 percent more candies compared to those who were given seven colors. No wonder your plate is so colorful.

Using Additives

Salt, autolyzed yeast extract, and MSG all serve to artificially (an inexpensively) enhance the taste of food. Recently, one popular San Francisco restaurant even tweeted out that it was adding MSG shakers to their tables. Meanwhile,

companies such as Dow Pharma & Food Solutions specialize in helping restaurants and food manufacturers improve the texture and mouth-feel of foods, both of which spur greater food satisfaction.

Charging a Higher Price

We get what we pay for—or at least we think we do. Hence why, when diners are charged more for an all-you-can-eat buffet, they actually rate the food as being better, according to researchers from the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.

  Faking Ingredients  

The one ingredient missing from your pumpkin spice latte: pumpkin. Some chains selling pumpkin-flavored drinks put artificial coloring in their drinks to make you think they contain a certain ingredient—even if they don't. And unfortunately, food dyes and other chemicals are commonly used throughout the food industry to make foods look better—which, as we've learned, also makes them seem like they taste better.

Setting the Mood

Eating in a dim room—like those in most fine-dining establishments—puts you at ease so that you enjoy your food more. But get this: It also makes you eat more slowly, and by slowing down, you're more apt to realize you're full before you've licked your plate clean. In fact, people who eat in dim lights to mellow music

consume 18 percent fewer calories than those eating in the bright lights of many chain restaurants, according to a study in Psychological Reports.

BY K. ALEISHA FETTERS