January 16th – the most depressing day of the year

Ahead of Blue Monday (16th January), labelled the most depressing day of the year, Pizza Hut UK has created its first multisensory eating experience aimed at beating the January blues.

The fusion of food, art, and science sees the creation of the first mood-enhancing pizza designed to be eaten while watching a piece of audio-visual art, aimed at increasing the viewers’ happiness, by stimulating the release of four naturally occurring chemicals in the body. 

Pizza Hut UK worked with a nutrition expert, Rebecca Hirst to identify the key ingredients for the pizza most likely to increase the four main chemicals (serotonin, dopamine-oxytocin, and endorphins) in the body. The pizza toppings included tomato sauce, mozzarella, tuna, red onion, olives, and sweet corn – all of which are available to be added to a ‘create your own’ pizza from Pizza Hut.

Ms. Hirst, said: “Oily fish such as tuna is a source of tryptophan that is converted in the brain to serotonin. The same applies to mozzarella cheese – the body uses the protein to synthesise serotonin and dopamine from amino acids. Finally, colourful, crunchy vegetables visually stimulate our senses – a rainbow of colour helps us enjoy our food ‘with our eyes’ and gets our taste buds tingling so that we salivate and our body prepares to digest our food well.”

Furthermore, a team of behavioural psychologists from Innovationbubble have applied a *methodology originally designed by professors of Psychology at Harvard, to identify the top 10 visual and audio cues that create the right psychological responses linked to happiness. The research findings included babies, baby laughter, puppies and kittens, love hearts, sunsets, rainbows, and clouds – all of which has been brought to life by award-winning visual artist, James Burgess.

Independent behavioural scientist, of Innovationbubble, Dr. Simon Moore, said: “Humans assess everything we see on an emotional survival dimension – so we quickly judge if something is a threat or likely to make us pleased, happy or excited. Using this theory, we worked closely with Pizza Hut UK to identify the visual cues and sounds that make people the happiest to complement their mood-boosting pizza.”

A Pizza Hut UK spokesperson said: “With the limited hours of light and a post-Christmas slump, everyone knows January can be a tough month. Food can certainly act as a pick me up, but we wanted to offer something more so we hope we help make everyone feel that bit happier this January!”

To experience Pizza Hut UK’s latest dining innovation, simply head down to your local Hut or order in for delivery and enjoy tomato sauce, mozzarella, tuna, red onion, olives and sweetcorn pizza while watching the ‘happiest video’ on your smartphone or tablet.