Sweet: When you can eat it to "save" calories
A high-calorie, therefore fattening dessert may not be so taxing on your figure, as long as you eat it in the right order.
Researchers in the US placed a healthy and a less healthy dessert (fresh fruit, cheesecake) at the beginning or the end of the meal sequence in a university cafeteria.
They found that when diners chose dessert first, they then made healthier choices for the main course and its side dishes, ultimately consuming fewer calories than those who chose fresh fruit first.
This did not appear to be the case when desserts were placed at the end of the food order. This was followed by three more experiments involving a fake food ordering website, which produced similar results to those of the real restaurant, but with one exception.
"We believe that people who initially opted for the calorie-laden dessert later made healthier choices at the main course to compensate for the ... sweet mishap." said Martin Rieman, assistant professor of marketing at the University of Arizona and one of the study's lead authors. "In contrast, those who initially chose the healthy dessert probably thought they were doing their body a favor and deserved a high-calorie main course."
The first experiment of the dessert was conducted in the restaurant of the School of Business Administration of the Institute of Technology of Monterrey in Mexico. Study author Dr. David Flores and his colleagues studied 134 people who ate at the restaurant and found that those who chose the lemon cheesecake first ended up consuming 30% fewer calories than those who chose the fresh fruit first. At the same time, people who chose the cheesecake at the beginning of the food sequence were twice as likely to choose a lighter main meal afterward compared to those who chose the cheesecake at the end of the food sequence.
The researchers also took into account other factors that could affect the result. They initially saw that cost was not an issue as the restaurant had a set price menu, whether one dessert or the other was chosen. They also saw that of the other parameters they investigated (age, gender, BMI, diet, exercise, views on healthy eating) only age appeared to play a role, with the difference in calories consumed increasing as age increased. The study involved people aged 18-60 (the university's restaurant also includes faculty and administrative staff) with an average age of 32.
The researchers then turned to online food ordering – a service that has become increasingly popular in recent years. They conducted three online experiments based on the same design they had followed in the restaurant but using a fake food delivery website. Dessert options were fruit salad or chocolate cake. The first experiment involved 160 people, who were asked what they would choose to eat from the site in order to measure the calories they would consume. The findings were similar to those of the restaurant study – participants chose dishes with fewer calories overall when they had initially chosen the chocolate cake over the fruit salad.
A second experiment with 180 participants produced similar results. Finally, in a third experiment in which 296 volunteers participated, the researchers wanted to see if brain "load" could affect the dish choices the participants made online. The volunteers were divided into two groups. One group was asked to memorize a two-digit number before ordering food. The other group was asked to memorize a seven-digit number before ordering the food. According to the findings, in the low "cognitive load" group that memorized the two-digit number, the results were similar to those of the previous experiments.
However, volunteers with a high "cognitive load" who had to memorize the seven-digit number were more likely to choose both a high-calorie dessert and a high-calorie main course and side dishes. "Everyone should keep in mind that the initial food choices they make and how busy their brains are when they make them can affect how healthy their meals are," noted Dr. Riemann.
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