Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of involvement in food preparation on estimated calorie content, perception of portion size and desirability of the food item.

Design/methodology/approach

To test the hypotheses, three between-subjects experiments (one online, two in a laboratory setting) were conducted. Across the three experiments, participants were presented with a food item either ready for consumption (low involvement) or with the individual ingredients in need of assembly prior to consumption (high involvement).

Findings

Results showed that when a consumer is involved in the preparation of their food, they perceive the food to be lower in calories and smaller in portion size than when the same food is presented fully prepared and ready-to-eat. In addition, the effect of food preparation involvement on perception of portion size has negative downstream consequences on food desirability, as a smaller perceived portion resulted in a less desirable food item.

Originality/value

To the authors’ knowledge, the results of this research are the first to focus on the impact of preparation involvement on perceptions of the specific product attributes of calorie content and portion size, and the downstream effect on desirability.

中文翻译：

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准备（误）感：参与对食物属性和可食性的影响

目的

本文的目的是评估参与食品制备对估计的卡路里含量，份量大小和食品期望度的影响。

设计/方法/方法

为了检验假设，进行了三个受试者间实验（一个在线，两个在实验室环境）。在这三个实验中，向参与者展示了一种可供食用的食品（食用量低）或食用前需要组装的各个成分（食用量高）。

发现

结果表明，当消费者参与其食物的制备时，与以完全准备好的即食食品呈现相同的食物相比，他们认为食物的卡路里更低且份量更小。另外，食物制备的参与对份量大小的感知的影响对食物的合意性具有负面的下游影响，因为感知的份数越小，导致食品越不理想。

创意/价值

据作者所知，这项研究的结果是第一个侧重于制剂参与对卡路里含量和份量的特定产品属性的感知以及对可食性的下游影响的影响。