This New Study Says Instagramming Your Food Actually Makes It Taste Better
We’re a generation who takes photos of just about everything. See a funny sign on your walk to work? Snapchat it. Backpack across Europe for a month? Obviously, you have to upload those epic photos to Facebook. Order an epic brunch at your favorite spot in the city? Well, that’s definitely going on Instagram. Our endless documentation has been parodied by hilarious videos like, “Instagram Husbands,” but new research has found that if you’re guilty of taking photos of just about everything you eat, it could actually be making it taste better. Take that, haters.
According to a new study by Sean Coary of Saint Joseph’s University and Morgan Poor of the University of San Diego, photographing a meal “causes a momentary active delay in consumption, which increases the savoring associated with consumption of pleasurable (i.e. indulgent) foods and, in effect, increases attitudes and taste evaluations of the experience when consumption actually takes place.” That’s a lot of fancy jargon, but the idea is basically this: By taking a photo of your meal, you’re essentially building your taste buds’ anticipation. And — true to the saying, “all good things come to those who wait” — it’s actually making it taste better.
While you’re probably taking photos mostly of epic stacks of pancakes or rainbow donuts, the researchers also found that photographing healthy food can make you more likely to enjoy consuming it. Does that mean a photo essay of steamed broccoli will make it taste like French fries? Here’s hoping.
Are you guilty of Instagramming every meal you eat? Tag us in your most delicious looking snap @BritandCo.
(Photos via Getty)
