Vegetables Make the Chef

Smart preparation and presentation of vegetable entrees not only enhances enjoyment of a meal, but also boosts the diner's perception of the person who prepared it, according to researchers at Cornell University.

"Simply put, vegetables make people feel more positive about the main course and the cook who prepared it," says professor Brian Wansink, lead author of the study titled "How Vegetables  Make the Meal: Their Hedonic and Heroic Impact on Perceptions of the Meal and of the Preparer."

"More vegetables are likely to be served with a meal if preparers know that the addition of vegetables makes them appear to be both a better cook and a better person," reports Wansink and his co-authors at Cornell.

The study consisted of two phases. Twenty-two laddering interviews were conducted, followed by a national survey of 500 American mothers with two or more children under the age of 18. The survey asked participants to evaluate meals served either with or without vegetables as well as a cook who did or did not include a vegetable with a dinner time meal.

Participants were also asked to choose from a list of twelve attributes, such as “selfish” or “loving”, to describe the meal preparer. No respondent saw both versions of the meal or meal preparer. The survey also asked questions regarding children’s favorite vegetable.
Those rating meals that included a vegetable gave significantly higher ratings to dishes such as chicken, steak and pasta on a variety of dimensions including “tasty” and “loving”.

The results showed that meals were favored when a vegetable was included, such as steak vs. steak with broccoli (score of 7.00 as opposed to 8.08), but also received better descriptions such as “loving” for the same meal (7.00 vs. 7.92). They also chose much more positive descriptors for the meal preparer that served a vegetable, including much more frequent selection of “thoughtful”, “attentive” and “capable” accompanied by a decrease in the selections of “neglectful”, “selfish” and boring.

Overall, vegetables “made the meal”, not only in terms of enhancing expectations of the main dish but in terms of creating a better perception of the cook as well.

The majority of vegetable consumption in the American diet takes place at dinner time, but only 23% of those meals are served with a vegetable.