Restaurant Confidential

Restaurants are filled with booby-traps the cause us to overeat. These original findings show how glasses, plates, and menu descriptions can unknowingly cause us to eat too much.

Descriptive Menu Labels’ Effect on Sales

abstract & summary | full text | poster | cartoon | teaching tips

Putting descriptive names (Black Forest Double-Chocolate Cake vs. Chocolate Cake) on menus made people rate the foods as tasting better and as being more caloric.

Bottoms Up! Peripheral Cues and Consumption Volume

abstract & summary | full text

Studies at “Weight-loss Camps” (and with veteran bartenders) show that visual illusions unknowingly cause people to pour 32-43% more in to short wide glasses than tall narrow ones.

Interactions Between Forms of Fat Consumption and Restaurant Bread Consumption

abstract & summary | full text

Hidden cameras at Italian restaurants show that people who put olive oil on a piece of bread will eat more fat and calories than if they instead used butter. The good news . . . they eat fewer pieces of bread.

© 2006 Cornell University, Food and Brand Lab, Department of Applied Economics and Management