Food Can Be Tricky

December 16, 2018

I’m reading a fascinating book: Why You Eat What You Eat, by Rachel Herz. It’s about how our brain and perceptions affect the taste of food and drink. Some stuff we’ve heard in short form through pop culture (“Presentation is everything”), but this book talks about the neuroscience behind the decisions we make regarding how much we like or don’t like food.

It explains why a fancy label can trick your brain into thinking cheap wine is good wine; why we think that attractively plated food is more tasty than food just slopped on the plate any old way; how ambient sound affects the way we perceive taste; etc. 

(In fact, it was in this book that I saw the quotation from Cicero: “Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable.” Your brain really can trick you.)

You won’t read it in one sitting, but it is pretty eye-opening. Check it out.