Seeing Photos of Food Makes Actual Food Less Tasty

This is Scientific American 60-Second Mind, I'm Christie Nicholson. Got a minute?
Pictures of food.
Snapping photos of meals is one of the less expected viral social media trends.
That mega burger, the cheesy burrito, the strawberry shortcake, captured forever as an object of desire.
But food photography can backfire.
Because a recent study finds that looking at a lot of photos of food can make foods similar to those pictured less enjoyable to eat.
This is due to something that scientists call "sensory boredom."
Researchers had more than 230 people look at and rate photos of food.
Half of the group viewed and rated 60 photos of sweet things like cake and chocolates.
The other half saw and rated 60 photos of savory foods like chips and pretzels.
Then everyone in the study ate salted peanuts and rated them.
The subjects who had seen photos of salty foods enjoyed the salted peanuts less than did the participants who had seen pictures.
Seems that a picture may be worth a thousand tastes.
The salty group never actually saw any peanut photos.
But, the researchers say, viewing the salty food photos had satiated their sensory experience of saltiness,
making yet more of the same thing less appealing.
Thanks for the minute, for Scientific American 60-Second Mind. I'm Christie Nicholson.