Studies reveal that most people select the foods they eat primarily on the basis of flavor, and that nutrition is usu...

Skylar on March 8, 2020

@Bauer22, happy to help!

The passage supports the claim that "health experts would have more success in encouraging people to eat wholesome foods if they emphasized how flavorful those foods truly are rather than how nutritious they are." We are looking for the answer choice that will most strengthen this argument.

Answer choice (A) states that "most people currently believe that wholesome foods are more flavorful, on average, than unwholesome foods are." Two potential issues with this answer choice stick out to me when I read this. First, if most people already think that wholesome foods are more flavorful than other foods, health experts would not be introducing any new information by discussing this flavor. They would simply be reinforcing what most people already believe, which may prove to be ineffective in encouraging more consumption of wholesome foods. Second, if people already tend to believe that the more flavorful foods are the more wholesome foods, we cannot be sure which characteristic is more motivating in their choice to consume the foods. In other words, we don't know if people are actually eating the food because of the flavor or if they would eat the food because of the nutritional value regardless of the flavor. Therefore, (A) does not significantly strengthen the argument made in the passage and identified above.

Answer choice (E) is correct because it offers direct support for the idea that promoting flavor rather than nutrition would be more successful in encouraging people to eat wholesome foods. (E) does this by describing a study in which one group was told of a food's flavor and the other was told of the food's nutrition, and the first group was ultimately "more willing to try the food and more likely to enjoy it." This closely aligns with the passage's prediction on health experts' success in encouraging consumption.

Does that make sense? Please let us know if you have any other questions and best of luck with your studies!