It is said that we eat first with our eyes. Basically, just looking at a dish - or even a photo of food - can draw us to a conclusion about how it could taste. According to experts, there are four components that make a meal look appealing. Color, shape, size and texture all form cues to whether the meal might melt in our mouth or only go down in between a good couple of gags.

Some would even argue that food is art. So it makes sense that color plays an important role in food presentation. “While bright, vibrant colors can add energy, complementary colors create a contrast that adds visual layers to the meal, and too many dull colors may seem unappealing,” notes the American Dining Creations site. It adds that a meal may smell and taste delicious, but "when the plate is a cluttered mess of confusing colors, it might take away from the smell and taste." 

Personal chef, cooking instructor and caterer Joni Sare believes that color is the most important factor when it comes to good looking meals. But says they actually tell us more than we might realize. “Different colors inherently provide different nutrition,” explains Sare. “The color in food is created by phytochemicals and other compounds which our bodies use as nutrients.”

According to Harvard Medical School, each color provides its own health benefits and no one color is superior to another. "Reaching a total of 4-1/2 cups of colorful fruits and vegetable a day is the goal for a powerful plate," notes the site.

Tasting with our eyes first isn’t necessarily always a good thing. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization says that approximately one-third of food produced is lost or wasted every year, mainly because it looks bad. This, while more than 820 million people go hungry every day. The FAO estimates that the food that is lost and wasted could feed 1.26 billion hungry people every year.

The FOA says a lot of food ends up in the bin because people are bias when it comes to the way produce looks. The State of Food and Agriculture 2019 report notes that this trend is more prevalent in first-world countries.

"A factor that contributes to food waste at retail level, especially in high-income countries, is the tendency to sell homogenous and 'perfect' produce (in terms of colour, shape, size, etc.)," reads the report.

"Food that fails to meet these high standards is discarded. While processing less than perfect products into ready-made foods may be a way of using discarded fresh foods, these foods spoil easily and are often discarded at the end of the day or sold at a lower price, reflecting qualitative waste."