Assessing the impact of exposure to nature on food perception and choice behaviour

In recent years, there has been growing interest in biophilia (otherwise known as the nature effect). However, the question of what exactly the effect of exposure to nature, through whichever sense(s) it happens to be experienced, has on people's food choices and multisensory flavour perception has received little attention from researchers to date. In this narrative historical review, we assess the effects of nature-related stimuli on people's food and drink experiences and their food choice behaviour. The research considered in this review clearly demonstrates that contact with nature-related stimuli, no matter whether real, artificial, digital, and/or virtual, tends to nudge the consumer toward healthier and more sustainable choices, for food, as well as in the context of other products or services. At the same time, a number of studies have shown that evoking nature, be it the blues or greens of water, or greenery, the colour or scent of flowers, or birdsong, are all capable of influencing both the sensory discriminative and hedonic responses to food and drink. There is even some emerging, albeit tentative, evidence to suggest that people can actually be nudged to leave less food waste (e.g., in the context of a self-service food canteen), and to make healthier food choices, simply by priming a nature-related context. The implications of such research findings for the food, health, and architectural design industries, specifically in terms of aiding healthy eating behaviours, are discussed.