This research examines how consumers' food choices differ when healthy items are included in a choice set compared with when they are not available. Results demonstrate that individuals are, ironically, more likely to make indulgent food choices when a healthy item is available compared to when it is not available. The influence of the healthy item on indulgent choice is stronger for those with higher levels of self-control. Support is found for a goal-activation-based explanation for these findings, whereby the mere presence of the healthy food option vicariously fulfills nutrition-related goals and provides consumers with a license to indulge.

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This research explores the impact of merely altering the name of a food on dieters’ and nondieters’ evaluations of the food’s healthfulness and taste, as well as consumption. Four studies demonstrate that when a food is identified by a relatively unhealthy name (e.g., pasta), dieters perceive the item to be less healthful and less tasty than do nondieters. When the identical food is assigned a relatively healthy name (e.g., salad), however, dieting tendency has no effect on product evaluations. This effect, which results in differences in actual food consumption, is explained by nondieters’ insensitivity to food cues as well as dieters’ reliance on cues indicating a lack of healthfulness and tendency to employ heuristic information processing when evaluating foods. These findings contribute to the body of literature that explores both individual and contextual factors that influence food evaluation and consumption.

Food waste presents a complex global problem that involves multiple actors and institutions within the aggregate food marketing system. Food waste occurs across food production and distribution, as well as at the hands of the consumer. In this research, the authors focus on waste that occurs across what is termed the “squander sequence,” which describes waste that occurs from consumer behaviors at the preacquisition, acquisition, consumption, and disposition stages. The authors set forth a behavioral theory–based agenda to explain food waste in the squander sequence with the ultimate goals of encouraging future research to uncover the psychological underpinnings of consumer-level food waste and of deriving transformative consumer solutions to this substantive issue.

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