Make vegetables taste amazing 
 
 Pulling power 
 
 The researchers, Brad Turnwald and colleagues, say the findings, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, make sense when you consider the psychology behind food choices. In response to increasing rates of obesity, many dining establishments have focused on promoting the health properties and benefits of nutritious foods to encourage people to choose healthier options.1 Ironically however, health-focused labeling of food may be counter-effective, as people rate foods that they perceive to be healthier as less tasty.2 Healthy labeling is even associated with higher hunger hormone levels after consuming a meal compared with when the same meal is labeled indulgently.3 How can we make healthy foods just as appealing as more classically indulgent and unhealthy foods?  Image copyright Paul_Brighton/Getty 
 
 How do you get more people to eat their greens? Because healthy foods are routinely labeled with fewer appealing descriptors than standard foods,1 this study tested whether labeling vegetables with the flavorful, exciting, and indulgent descriptors typically reserved for less healthy foods could increase vegetable consumption. We predicted that vegetables labeled with indulgent descriptors would be chosen more than the same vegetables labeled with basic or healthy descriptors. People served themselves 23% more of the vegetable when it was described with more appetizing language than when it was simply presented with a basic label. Discussion 
 
 Labeling vegetables with indulgent descriptors significantly increased the number of people choosing vegetables and the total mass of vegetables consumed compared with basic or healthy descriptions, despite no changes in vegetable preparation. Pairwise comparisons (Figure) revealed that labeling vegetables indulgently resulted in 25% more people selecting the vegetable than in the basic condition (95% CI, 1%-49%; P = .04), 41% more people than in the healthy restrictive condition (95% CI, 18%-64%; P = .001), and 35% more people than in the healthy positive condition (95% CI, 10%-60%; P = .01). If people don’t think healthy foods taste good, how can we expect them to make healthy choices?” 
 
 Said Crum: “Changing the way we label healthy foods is one step toward changing the pernicious mindset that healthy eating is depriving and distasteful.” 
 
 This work was supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.
– Getting yourself or your kids to eat more veggies could be as easy as coming up with a tempting name for your dish. According to psychology researchers at Stanford, people are more likely to chow down on vegetables if they have an "indulgent" name, like "sizzlin' beans" as opposed to plain old "beans." Diners are "motivated by taste," but labels affect "how tasty and filling we think food will be," study author Bradley Turnwald tells the BBC. To discover whether they could get people to eat more vegetables simply by changing the label, Turnwald and colleagues spent a month and a half serving up veggies in a university cafeteria, per a release. Some dishes got a basic label like "carrots." Others got a label like "twisted citrus-glazed carrots." The veggies were always prepared the same way. But researchers found those with "indulgent" labels were by far the best sellers, with 25% more people choosing them than veggies with a basic label. In a sign that consumers view healthy food as less tasty, the "indulgent" veggies were also gobbled up by 35% more people than ate veggies with healthy-positive labeling ("smart-choice vitamin C citrus carrots") and 41% more people than ate veggies with healthy-restrictive labeling ("carrots with sugar-free citrus dressing"). A greater amount of indulgent veggies was also eaten, reports Time. Turnwald's conclusion: Labeling can sway us, but "emphasizing health can actually discourage diners from choosing healthy options." (What food is paired with veggies also matters.)