Most of us have heard time and time again that we need to eat enough veggies on a daily basis for good health, yet stats show that more than 90% of Australians still don’t meet the 5 recommended serves on a daily basis. New research shows the name of your vegetable dish matters. Seductive vegetables, or seductive sounding names for vegetable dishes can help improve vegetable intake.
Wait… Seductive Vegetables? What?
A research team at Stanford university recently conducted a study on the students, where ‘seductive’ or ‘indulgent’ labels were used to name vegetable dishes.
People often seem to think that if something is healthy, it won’t taste as good, where as if something is less healthy, it will taste better. Naming the dishes to sound ‘less wholesome’ worked a treat, as vegetable sales then went up 25% for the dishes that were renamed!
Other useful strategies
What are some other ways to increase vegetable intake? Here are my (other) favourite tips:
- Start early in the day. Waiting until dinner time makes it really tough to consume the whole five serves. Starting at breakfast or lunch, and spreading your vegetables over the day makes it more likely you’ll achieve the five serves.
- Mix it up. Include your favourites, but also experiment with vegetables you’re less familiar with, in a bid to keep it interesting.
- Use herbs and spices. These help enhance the flavour of the vegetables.
- Prepare in different ways. Steaming, sautéing, baking, roasting, stir-frying, raw… the list is long. Try different methods, and combinations, for example raw spinach leaves with roasted pumpkin, or sautéed brussel sprouts with sauerkraut.
- Hide them! Grating a carrot, zucchini or eggplant into a pasta sauce, blending and mixing through a cake (hello beetroot), or incorporating into dips can be a tasty way to include.
But the seductive names…!
As the research shows, this is a great way to go! Head over to my new Facebook Page and let me know what your favourite names are for veggie dishes, and over to Talking Lifestyle for my recent chat about this topic!