Don’t try offering a wonky piece of fruit to an attractive person – you’ll get an ugly response.
A study shows that men and women who think they’re good-looking are more likely to find misshapen fruit and vegetables disgusting.
The reason is that self-identifying beautiful people feel more entitled and believe they deserve more perfect-looking food, say researchers at York University in Toronto, Canada.
They tested the reactions of 1,200 people to wonky-looking cucumbers, strawberries and aubergines.
Those rating themselves as attractive were 50 per cent more likely to shun the ugly fruit and veg, compared to average-looking people.
“We showed that higher self-perceived attractiveness predicts heightened aversion to misshapen produce, as reflected in disgust reactions,” said the researchers.
“Disgust is well-established as an evolutionary reaction designed to protect against unsafe food but this reaction can sometimes misfire, being triggered by harmless aesthetic deviations, as in the case of misshapen produce.”
The academics say nearly 40 per cent of consumer-driven food waste around the world is because people avoid misshapen produce.
Their study is on the Social Science Research Network platform.