How your mood can affect the taste of food

Psychology can change the way food tastes - Harmehak Singh shares how you can use it to make the most of your meals

- Harmehak Singh

EVER eaten while doom-scrolling and realised you barely tasted anything? Or found your favourite pasta strangely bland after a stressful meeting, yet somehow delicious on a relaxed Saturday evening?

We often think taste comes from ingredients and cooking techniques. But taste isn’t just on the plate. Our emotions, expectations - even the people sitting with us - can shape how food tastes.

This mind-food connection sits at the heart of gastrophysics, a field which studies how our senses, brain and mental states shape our eating experience. Once we know how this works, we can start using simple psychological shifts to make everyday meals taste richer, brighter and more satisfying, without changing a single ingredient.

Mindful eating means paying attention to each bite; noticing flavours, textures, aromas and the sensations in our body as we eat. But most of us don't eat like this.

We eat while scrolling, replying to messages or watching Netflix in the background. Our attention gets divided, our senses dull and we go into “autopilot” mode. We chew quickly, swallow automatically and miss the subtle flavours and signals from our body telling us we are full. We also lose touch with our body’s hunger cues, which makes overeating more likely.

Normally, rising levels of the “hunger hormone” ghrelin and gentle stomach contractions alert us it's time to eat. But distraction makes those messages easier to ignore.

Essentially, our body also has a sophisticated system to tell us to stop. As we eat, our stomach stretches, sending “fullness” signals to the brain.