A team at Stanford tried it out on students in the university cafeteria and found veggie sales went up by 25% when indulgent labels were used.
"Sizzlin' beans", "dynamite beets" and "twisted citrus-glazed carrots" tempted diners to fill their plates.
Healthy labels, such as "wholesome", were a turn-off, even though the dishes were identical in every other way.
Seductive carrot...
The experiment took place over the whole of the autumn academic term. Each day, a vegetable dish was labelled up in one of four ways: