This is when a salad not a salad? Why indicated is easily confused by labels (Time.com)

Shown is a targeted heap: calculate calories, sugar and fat content and conscientiously ask vinaigrette on the side. Right? Step exactly. According to a new study indicated tend indeed to make snap judgments on the safety of the food based only on his label, instead of its ingredients.

"The wire of time, indicated learn to focus on simply avoiding foods that they recognize as a prohibited based on the name of the product," said the authors, Caglar Irmak, Professor of marketing at the University of South Carolina; Beth Vallen, Professor of marketing at Loyola University Maryland; and Stefanie Rosen Robinson, a graduate student at the University of South Carolina, in a statement (PDF). "Thus indicated is likely to assume that an element given a substandard name (for example, pulp) is less good health an element given it a name in good health (for example, salad), and they spend time, taking into account information on the product which may affect their assessments of products".

Given the ubiquity of washed health products currently on the shelves of stores - potato chips marketed as "veggie chips," milk sold as "smoothies," sweet drinks repositioned as "flavoured water" - which can lead to much confusion, the authors say.

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In a series of experiments, the researchers asked participants - some who have a diet, those who were not - to assess the relative safety and the taste of food and measure these ratings against the amount of people. In one experiment, people were invited to imagine the command in a menu lunch and evaluate how healthy the "daily special salad" or "daily special pasta" was. They received lists of ingredients and photos of inputs, which were in fact exactly the same - all tasty two containing romaine lettuce, diced tomatoes, onions, red peppers, shells of pasta, salami, mozzarella cheese and a herb vinaigrette. Both totalled 900 calories, with 60 grams of fat. The only difference is that one has been called the other, pasta and a salad.

The only label was enough to influence the shown - but not the nondieters'-ratings. When the product was called the pasta, the indicated classified it significantly less healthy than the nondieters. Interestingly, however, when it was given the name of "healthy", salad, it leads to no difference in ratings between the two groups. (But, overall, indicated believes that the same dish, then called salad, was in better health.)

It is indicated because tend to be more sensitive to certain names of food taboo - like pasta, ice cream, of potato chips and candy - that people who are not constantly watch their weight and is more motivated to avoid. On the reverse, however, their judgment of healthy foods that sound is not different from nondieters'. So strategy of dieter typical not necessarily to eat more of good food, but rather to avoid the bad.

(More on TIME.com: "health-washing: is"Healthy"fast food for real?")

Why nondieters are not as easily fooled by the labels of the products? The authors write:

it is important to note here that we do not believe that the reason why the nondieters ratings are from the impact of the name of food is that these people tend to evaluate food more systematically indicated. In fact, we believe that the reason for which the name of the product has no bearing on assessments of the nondieters is that they have no motivation to spontaneously assess the safety of food, or the implicit associations between certain categories of food and food safety that doc indicated

in other wordswho are not concerned with simply indifferent to this tip weight loss.

In another experiment, and nondieters were invited to assess the safety and the taste of sour Jelly Belly jelly beans - presented as "fruit chews" or "candy Lamb's lettuce." Not only were shown more likely to rate that candy chews less healthy and less tasty nondieters made, but also, paradoxically, they ate more snack when it was known as fruit chews.

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Seems to be indicated is so busy to avoid a long list of "forbidden" foods that they are failing to take note of what really matters: the ingredients of the product, not marketing hype.

The study was published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

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