Thanksgiving is nearly here, and we at HCXU are getting ready for the delicious feast and food coma to come. Our mouths are already watering just thinking about the delicious, warm platters sitting on the dining room table. And after the meal, we’re thankful for the food in our bellies and the loving people who made it for us.
If you’re like us, making your own meals can be a drag–food just tastes better when someone else makes it! Anytime you try to replicate that perfect sandwich your dad makes, or the cake your mom has become famous for, it just doesn’t taste the same. Why is this? We investigated the pressing question of this holiday season: why does food taste better when someone else makes it?
Some researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have an answer. While we’re making our own food, we anticipate the taste and continuous exposure to the food throughout cooking, which makes us less hungry for it. So, seeing the food being made makes it less desireable to us. When someone else makes food for us, we haven’t “pre-consumed” the food by watching it be made.
Additionally, throughout the cooking process, we are constantly smelling, and maybe tasting, the food that we’re making. The repeat exposure to the smell changes the way that we taste the final product because our sense of smell is connected to our sense of taste. When someone else makes food for us, the taste is more surpriseful, and possibly more delicious, because we haven’t been exposed to the smell as much.
So this Thanksgiving, be thankful for your family, the food on the table, and most of all, whoever made you that delicious meal.
*Information gathered from Forbes and Phil for Humanity