If you’re trying to make healthier food choices this year, here’s an interesting and surprising finding: choosing a hot sandwich instead of a cold one might help keep you from ordering extra food.
A researcher at Rutgers University-Camden, Maureen Morrin, spent two weeks tracking customers’ orders at a cafe in New York City.
She found that the customers who ordered a cold sandwich were at least twice as likely to buy other foods, like chips or cookies, than the people who ordered hot sandwiches.
Morrin and her colleagues also tracked orders at a cafe serving hot and cold drinks.
Customers buying the hot beverages were three times more likely to add a muffin or a croissant to their order than those with cold drinks.
It isn’t that the cold items were larger or higher in calories than the hot ones, but it appears that people felt less satisfied with the cold orders.
The researchers have a theory about this: with many foods and drinks, serving them warm means the fats they contain are melted – that means eaters and drinkers are getting more flavor and more aroma of what they’re consuming.
They’re more likely to feel satisfied with the order without reloading on extras.
There’s still a lot more research to come in this field, of course, but if you’re looking for ways to improve your own nutrition, a little heat might do a little good.
On this day in 1912, an unusual performance of Guiseppi Verdi’s opera Aida at the base of the Great Pyramid in Egypt!
Actually, they did two performances: one at sunset and the other as the moon was rising.
Because if you’re singing next to the pyramids, you might as well go for the absolute grandest effect you can, right?
Consumers Buy More Food When They Order Cold Meals and Drinks, Reports Rutgers‒Camden Researcher (Rutgers-Camden)
Today in 1912 ‘Aida’ opens in open-air production beneath the Great Pyramid (Victorian Masculinity)
It would be fun to go out for a hot sandwich, chips and a drink with our Patreon backers
Panini photo by Sea-Turtle via Flickr/Creative Commons