"Eating is a far more multi-sensory experience than most of us realise - we can see it as a conversation between our brain and our gut," explains Professor Charles Spence, an experimental psychologist at the University of Oxford. He gives the example of eating a peach - your brain has to bind together the aromatic smell, the taste, the furry texture and the colour. All these sensory cues are put together by our clever brain to create the "flavour".
I find it thrilling that sensory stimuli - the way food is plated and served, the colours and textures - can be used to retrain our appetite. Here are the nine top, achievable tricks to stop us from overeating.
"People who eat with heavier cutlery rate the food as more valuable and feel fuller quicker," says Spence, author of Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating.
"Probably heavier cutlery reminds us of a champagne bottle, and more weight means a more intense quality." Similarly, if you add weight to a yoghurt pot or a bowl of food, then people will think it's going to be more satiating.
"They can't separate the contents from the container. It's the same reason perfume bottles are made from heavy glass. It has a direct effect on the perceived intensity of the sensations."
Bowl foods are also felt to be more satiating. "If you hold the bowl you are eating from in one hand and your spoon or fork in the other, the weight in your hand will make you feel more satisfied with whatever amount you eat. Bringing the bowl closer to our face allows us to take a hearty sniff of the steaming contents, so you get more of the olfactory cues. The weight of the bowl and the food actually makes the aroma even more intense, tricking our brain into thinking that it has consumed more."
The weight of glassware also enhances perceived drink quality. Guests feel more special and rate the contents higher, whether it's wine or water, when served in cut crystal rather than a plastic cup. "You're feeding in this perception that heavy is better, and plastic is cheap," says clinical psychologist Dr Helen McCarthy, who specialises in appetite retraining.
Yes, we can taste colour. Our perception of aroma and flavour is affected by the colour of the food and drink we consume. We perceive a pinkish-red-coloured drink or dessert (strawberry milk, bubble gum, fruit yoghurt) as sweeter and stronger than a colourless one, because our brains link the colour red with sweetness and intensity through learned associations (like red berries/cherries). Changing the colour of our plates can literally influence us to eat more (or less).
It is called "brain priming": seeing red activates neural pathways related to sweetness and intensity, adjusting our sensory perception before consumption, making us expect and therefore experience a more intense flavour.
Similarly, hot chocolate tastes more "chocolatey" and is liked significantly more when it is served from an orange plastic cup rather than a white one. "If you've got a sweet tooth, then you're getting more sweet satisfaction simply from the colour of the plate that you're eating on," says McCarthy, "which is really helpful around Christmas."
Presentation, lighting and ambience all influence our food choices. "A very interesting set of studies compared eating exactly the same recipe but served in different locations," says McCarthy.
One study involved a particular chicken and rice dish. It was served in a four-star hotel, where the table had a white tablecloth and proper tableware; in an army training camp canteen; in a boarding school; and in a university staff dining room. The same dish was rated as 20% better and more filling in the four-star restaurant set-up." "Dim lighting - soft warm bulbs or candlelight - can help your body to feel more relaxed, and so you eat much slower," says Dr Susan Albers, a psychologist at the Cleveland Clinic and author of nine books on mindful eating.
Be mindful of where you sit at a Christmas party, says Albers. "If you sit with your back to the buffet, that could be very helpful. Also, we tend to eat more of the first three foods in line in the buffet, so walk around the room first and plan. I say to my clients, 'Slow down. Sit down. Savour. And slowly chew'."
Smell (olfaction) is more important to our tasting experience than any of us realise, says Professor Spence - "75 to 95% of what we think we taste, we're actually smelling. Stronger aromas help our brain to decide when it has had enough. Plus natural smells - fruit, baking bread - can also nudge people towards healthier, more sustainable choices."
"The number one scent for calming our nervous system is citrus," says Dr Albers. "That's why you find it in spas."
Professor Spence cites a 2024 New Zealand study which found that the smell of mixed herbs can drive consumers to select more wholesome ingredients when cooking meals at home. Inhale the aroma of the food frequently to help you feel satiated, he advises, and avoid using straws to drink - they eliminate all the orthonasal olfactory cues that are a large part of the enjoyment.
Serving food in a rounder shape - whether beetroot jelly or chocolate - often makes it taste sweeter than when it's presented in an angular form.
Research has shown that seeing round shapes makes us perceive sweetness more intensely. Fruits, which are naturally sweet, are either roundish or curved. As are many familiar desserts, such as ice cream scoops and biscuits.
In one 2013 experiment, participants who were served cheesecake on round versus square white plates perceived the cheesecake as 20% sweeter than participants who ate from square white plates.
Studies show mellow music like classical or jazz can decrease cravings for indulgent, high-calorie fast food. Slower-tempo or low-volume music also encourages a more relaxed dining experience, leading you to chew more thoroughly.
Eating slowly aids digestion and gives your body time to register feelings of fullness. In contrast, people are likely to drink faster when listening to fast-tempo music, and chewing intensity, i.e. the number of bites, can increase. "If you go to a restaurant where there's upbeat background music, you'll eat more quickly," warns Dr McCarthy.
Pay attention to the sound of your meal. Many of the food properties we find desirable - crispy, crackly, crunchy, squeaky (like halloumi cheese) - depend, at least in part, on what we hear, says Professor Spence.
We have come to enjoy these noisy foods because they probably have a higher fat content and pleasing mouthfeel than other quieter foods. In an experiment he found increasing the volume of the crunch when eating potato crisps made eaters believe they were around 15% crunchier and fresher. To help us eat more healthily, we can play the same "sonic trick" with apples, celery and carrots, which provide a satisfying crunch.
If all else fails, give menthol mouthwash a try, says McCarthy. Studies show that using it after you've eaten makes you less likely to eat again soon. And cleaning your teeth after eating really spoils the flavour. "You can use this to your advantage by including it as part of your after-meal routine. If you're using mint toothpaste and then think, 'Oh, I might have a chocolate or some crisps,' it will really taste weird."
Spence has spent the past two decades collaborating with "molecular" chefs such as Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adria to find out the palatability of different foods. He calls his research "gastrophysics" because he mostly spends his time studying real people in naturalistic dining situations rather than in the lab.
And the good news is by exploiting the extraordinary connection between our senses, he has found that we can create healthier eating experiences. For example, in research conducted with the Alicia Foundation in Spain, a strawberry dessert was perceived as 10% sweeter and 15% more flavourful when eaten from a white, round plate rather than a black, angular one.
When we're really hungry, our taste buds are buzzing and real food tastes great. But if we're not really hungry (hello Boxing Day!), our taste bud sensitivity is dulled, so we need to fill up with high-sugar, high-fat, high-salt combinations to taste much at all.
"It's about learning to eat in tune with your natural hunger and fullness signals," says Dr McCarthy.