Appearance in food can be the cues for good foods
Foods in Japan stimulate our multiple senses. Delicious foods have not only good tastes but also good appearance, smells, and texture.
Visuals are some of the sensory cues for consumers to find good foods to eat. For example, consumers in Japan pick up a packaged Sashimi with a bright, most and firm appearance as fresh fish at the supermarket. They also pick up strawberries with bright red color and glossy appearance as fresh ones when they buy and eat them as fresh fruit. Visuals can be important sensory cues for consumers, especially to find fresh food ingredients to cook and eat.
Appearance in food helps us predict its taste
Before eating, visuals in foods are also crucial for people to get ideas about food tastes before eating. For example, Yakiimo (Japanese grilled sweet potato) is a popular winter snack in Japan. The sweet potato’s moist and soft yellowish appearance helps you predict how the sweet potato is well-roasted fuffy, and sweet-tasted.
Once you eat Yakiimo, you can easily predict the taste of the foods by just looking at them the next time.
A variety of color and shapes of sweets can satisfy our appetite
Sweets in Japan have endless varieties. Not only traditional Japanese sweets but also western sweets have various shapes and colors that attract your attention.
You may notice that Japanese sweets satisfy your appetite with various appearances, not volume. Typically, Japanese sweets have small sizes. Therefore, you can enjoy looking at the sweets and eating them with your eyes without worrying about eating them too much if you do not eat them all!