Does serving vegetables in partitioned portions promote vegetable consumption?

•Presentation of food influences consumption.•We examined the impact of presenting vegetables in partitioned portions.•Partitioning decreased the frequency of participants eating one bite of vegetables.•Partitioning increased the frequency of participants completing the amount of food in one partitioned portion. Fruit and vegetable consumption in the United States is below the recommended level for two reasons: lack of access and low preference. In this work, we identify lack of preference for vegetables as a public health issue and apply theories from psychology and marketing literature to study the effect of partitioned presentation of vegetables on consumption of vegetables. Separating items into single units with clear partitions generally reduces consumption of relatively appealing foods by making the eater more aware of the amount consumed. For relatively less appealing foods (typically but not exclusively those lower in sugar/fat), a partitioned presentation format might operate to increase consumption. This expectation draws on two complementary theoretical perspectives. First, partitioning of relatively unappealing foods involve initiation rather than inhibition, and thus, fewer decision points may promote consumption. Second, because people have an intrinsic desire for completion, they may be more likely to finish a partitioned portion, even if these are made of relatively unappealing options. After conducting a pilot experiment to verify experimental procedures, we conducted two experiments (total N = 342) in which we randomly presented cauliflower (a relatively less appealing food) in either a whole presentation format (i.e., all pieces on one plate) or a partitioned presentation format (i.e., groups of cauliflower pieces arranged into subgroups with clear divisions) and measured consumption. We observed no effects of presentation format on total consumption, but we did observe an increase in minimal consumption in the partitioned format.