Eat before you read: Menus can be misleading

A salad ain’t a salad if it is mostly pasta and cheese. Read your menu carefully. That’s the moral of a new study that shows people on a diet can often eat wrong foods simply because they are deceptively labeled. “These days, restaurant salads can include ingredients that dieters would be likely to avoid (meats, cheeses, breads, and pasta). Potato chips are labeled ‘veggie chips’, milkshakes are called ‘smoothies’, and sugary drinks are named ‘flavored water’. Over time, dieters learn to focus on simply avoiding foods that they recognise as forbidden based on product name,” say its authors. [caption id=“attachment_1706” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images”]  [/caption] The study offered participants a mixture of vegetables, pasta, salami, and cheese, served on romaine lettuce. They found dieters would choose the same dish when it was labelled a “salad” and reject it when it was tagged as a pasta dish. There was little difference in non-dieters who tend to pay little attention to food names. This is a handy tip to keep in mind the next time you order that mayonnaise-laden potato salad or a “healthy” dosa cooked in ghee.