Fruit Salad- Optimized ?

It was a surprisingly warm day. Or maybe it was just one of those times I wore too many layers and biked ten minutes to the train station, and ended up feeling way too warm. I don’t remember. Either way, I remember that I needed a fresh snack before hopping on the train. I stopped by the kiosk, quickly checked out my healthy-ish options, and grabbed a fruit salad. 

But when you think about it -and I definitely did- there is certainly a lot to consider when evaluating a fruit’s fitness for a better fruit salad experience; its ripeness, texture, tendency to brown, how much juice it is willing to release, and so on. Even after arriving in Amsterdam, the question of “what makes a fruit salad better?” stuck with me. And I wanted to tackle this more systematically. 

So I took it a step further. I first did a desk research and identified few factors that are used to evaluate a fruit’s suitability for a fruit salad, put together a survey and collected data on people’s preferences when it comes to what makes a great fruit salad - we are talking about N = 13, so keep this in mind before making bold conclusions otherwise Daniel Lakens might haunt your dreams and lecture you about effect sizes (which, to be fair, could actually turn out to be a pretty helpful dream). 

If you are curious and want to know what a data-driven fruit salad might look like, keep reading!

“l'll eat anything as long as it looks pretty”: Tasting with our eyes 

Sensory information plays a crucial role when it comes to enjoying food. The way something looks, smells, or feels can influence our perception of taste and our decision to eat. And while one may assume that it is the taste that drives most food choices, studies show that vision is actually the primary sense we rely on when making those choices. After all, how food looks is the first cue we get. By linking the visual cues to our past experiences and knowledge, we create an instant judgement on the overall acceptability of the food, often faster than we could by using other senses like touch or smell. 

Color is one of the most powerful visual cues when it comes to food. So much so that it can even influence how we perceive taste. In one study, participants rated strawberry-flavored mousse as tasting better when it was served on a white plate compared to a dark one. The researchers suggested that the color contrast between the plate and the dessert enhanced the intensity of flavor.

Similar to color, the way food is presented also seems to influence our food preferences. For example, another study showed that kids ate more fruit when the fruit pieces were served on a slice of watermelon with toothpicks, compared to the same fruits being served on a plain while plate. 

So, we can conclude that the appearance of food can signal the quality and the taste of the food, and can determine behavioral outcomes such as food choices. 

Which brings us back to the main character of this newsletter: fruit salads. 

Can fruit salad make you less friendly? 

Undeniably, we apply similar rules when judging the acceptability of a fruit salad. Seeing soggy watermelon pieces or a brownish banana are not the visual cues that say “I am the freshest fruit salad you’ll ever taste”. If anything, seeing that usually makes me a little depressed. In fact, a study on emotional responses to fruit salads found that, in the presence of a spoiled salad that is stored up to 10 days, participants felt "significantly less peaceful, friendly, and eager but more aggressive, sad, and disgusted”! 

You see, I don’t want my fruit salad to make me feel more aggressive. I want it to bring joy and excitement. So, I had to look up tips and tricks for making a nice and tasty fruit salad that would brighten my day with its presence. 

A quick Google search led me to a Mashed article titled “Mistakes Everyone Makes with Fruit Salad”. The title grabbed me immediately as I definitely did not want to make the same mistakes as everyone else when it comes to preparing a fruit salad.  To make a memorable fruit salad, the article suggested, you should not let the fruit brown, choose fruits with different textures, and that should think about color. Basically, it advises you to consider all the sensory-driven elements highlighted in the literature. 

At this point, I felt like I had all the information needed to come up with proper criteria for bringing together a memorable fruit salad.

I was ready for the next step. 

How to select which fruits to go into the fruit salad? 

Based on my desk research, I became convinced that the very first step towards creating a remarkable fruit salad starts with fruit selection. And when it comes to selecting the right fruit, one key concept stood out: the structural integrity of a fruit. This is a construct consisting of two dimensions: resilience and pokeability (source: Trust me bro). 

Resilience of a fruit

I define the resilience of a fruit as the ability to withstand external factors such as time, other surrounding fruits, oxidation, and other possible environmental influences. For example, a resilient fruit can maintain its texture and firmness for hours, while a not-so-resilient fruit softens quickly & bruises easily. 

Think of it like this: if this fruit were doing a PhD during a pandemic, would it be able to stay mentally strong, or would it crumble under the pressure? 

Pokeability of a fruit

Pokeability, on the other hand, is the measure of how easily a fruit can be indented or penetrated by a gentle poke with a fork. For example, a well-pokeable fruit maintains its structural integrity when clanged to the fork after being poked, while a not-so-pokeable fruit is challenging to poke because of its shape, texture, or fragility. 

Now that our evaluation criteria is defined, I believe that if we can apply these criteria in fruit selection, we are a step closer to coming up with the most memorable fruit salad.

And it is my responsibility, as a behavioural science researcher, to conduct the research and come up with the names of these fruits. 

So I did. I put together a survey and collected data from 13 people to see how would they evaluate a set of popular fruits used for fruit salads based on their resilience and pokeability. 

Method

In total, the study had 13 participants (4 female). The overall mean age was 34.8. Among 13 participants, one person indicated that they eat their fruit salad with hand, and two others with a spoon. The rest used fork. When it comes to fruit salad consumption, almost half of the participants reported that they eat fruit salad once in every three months, with 2 participants indicating that they “honestly, never” had a fruit salad in their lives and still felt entitled to fill in a survey that is all about the fruit salad. 

Both resilience and pokeability were measured on a 5 point Likert scale with 1 = not resilient / not pokeable at all and 5 = very resilient / very pokeable. 

The list participants were asked to evaluate consisted of 7 popular fruits used in fruit salads: apple, banana, grapes, pineapple, watermelon, pear and mandarin. 

When it comes to the fruit people are least excited to see in a fruit salad, the answers were all over the place. That being said, two people mentioned grapes with one of the two highlighting the unpokeable nature of the fruit.

Other factors? 

Finally, I wanted to know what other factors people think about when deciding whether a fruit deserves a spot in a fruit salad, this was important for a possible follow up study. 

Taste, of course, was the big one. A few people talked about the importance of getting the right balance between sourness and sweetness. One person even noted that certain fruits, like melon, overpowers everything else and dominates the salad with its flavor and should therefore be left out. 

Juiciness was another topic. Some participants enjoyed the idea of a juicy fruit that has “the ability to create a juicy and syrupy liquid that binds everything together” (P10). For others, however, this was more of a deal breaker: “Some fruits are pretty inconsiderate when it comes to leeching their juices into the common space of the other fruits.” (P6). 

And finally, there is the look. Quite a few people mentioned the importance of a visually appealing and colorful fruit salad: ““…if i have lot of yellow fruit in my salad then my next fruit to add could be a grape, so that the salad as a whole look more appealing to me (P7)”

Overall, these results make one thing clear: putting together a fruit salad is not just about having a simple snack; it is a nuanced, strategic and emotional experience. 

How does a data-driven fruit salad look?

While putting this piece together, I was genuinely surprised how passionately people feel about what should -and definitely should not- go into a fruit salad. So I am very much aware that, by claiming to present a “perfect” fruit salad, I am stepping into a controversial territory. 

But here we go. Based on survey results, ladies and gentlemen, I present you the data-driven -and maybe borderline controversial- Perfect Fruit Salad!

Pineapple, mango, strawberries, and watermelon are the fruits that made the cut. Grapes and bananas, on the other hand, did not make the bowl. 

Do you agree with the results? Are there any fruits that I scandalously left out?