Renewable bites: How energy sources shape food healthiness judgments

Abstract

Public opinion increasingly associates nuclear energy with negative environmental outcomes, but can this perception influence how people judge food? This study examines whether the perceived naturalness of energy sources used to manufacture kitchen appliances affects the perceived healthiness of foods prepared with those appliances. Food prepared with appliances manufactured using nuclear energy was consistently perceived as less healthy than food prepared with appliances manufactured without any specified energy source (Studies 1–3; $N_{\text {total}}$ = 1,939), with this negative nuclear effect also emerging when compared against a wind energy condition in the most well-powered, preregistered experiment (Study 3). Further, the effect of nuclear energy on healthiness perceptions was indirect through perceived risk (Study 3), implying that nuclear energy evoked greater perceived risk, which ultimately reduced perceived healthiness. This work extends contagion theory by showing that perceptions of unnaturalness can spread through abstract and distant links—such as energy sources used in manufacturing—to shape judgments in unrelated domains. The persistence of negative contagion effects associated with nuclear energy, but the more modest positive effects from wind energy, aligns with the principle of negativity dominance in contagion research. These results suggest that consumer resistance to nuclear energy may stem, in part, from naturalness perceptions.