More Food-related Neologisms

post-off pricing n. Washington state requires producers and distributors to post their pricing to a central database maintained by the state’s liquor control board. When these producers and distributors post discounts, that is called “post-off pricing.”

bliss point n. Faced with insistent demands to lower the salt, food companies employ three strategies. Strategy No. 1 is to try to reduce sodium. Manufacturers say they can’t do this easily. Unless products are salty enough—reaching what the industry calls the “bliss point”—people will not buy them.

health halo n. The other half of the Park Slopers were shown the same salad and drink plus two Fortt’s crackers prominently labeled “Trans Fat Free.” The crackers added 100 calories to the meal, bringing it to 1,034 calories, but their presence skewed people’s estimates in the opposite direction. The average estimate for the whole meal was only 835 calories—199 calories less than the actual calorie count, and 176 calories less than the average estimate by the other group for the same meal without crackers. Just as Dr. Chandon had predicted, the trans-fat-free label on the crackers seemed to imbue them with a health halo that magically subtracted calories from the rest of the meal.

mockolate n. Andy McShea is a Harvard-trained molecular biologist using his scientific talent in Seattle to promote “true chocolate” and steer consumers away from inadvertently ingesting all that other brown sweet stuff he says is often unhealthy, morally questionable and not the real thing. “We like to call it “mockolate’” said McShea, his British accent rising with indignation. “Most of the stuff sold as chocolate out in the world today is not really chocolate.”

Find more new words at Double-Tongued Dictionary.