Mentioning Guacamole May Be the Key to Scoring Dates Online

Despite all the changes in dating over the decades, going out to dinner is still a traditional step in any early courtship. So it only makes sense that people would seek out a romantic partner who has similar eating habits. However, to prove this theory, the online dating service Zoosk analyzed over 3.7 million dating profiles and over 364 million first messages in an effort to see “how mentioning different foods and food-related phrases changes online daters’ romantic interactions.” Overall, they found that name-dropping grub actually works.

“Food preferences do have an impact on how we interact with each other romantically,” the company wrote. “And for the most part, any time food and romance come together it’s very positive.” So as a result of their findings, you might want to consider tweaking your online dating profile – no matter what dating service you use.

For its report, Zoosk specified 30 different food terms and, incredibly, 28 of them correlated with an increase in inbound messages. The big three were guacamole, potatoes and chocolate – all of which were associated with messages at least doubling. Guacamole in particular ruled the roost: It topped the list of beneficial food words, increasing inbound messages by a whopping 144 percent. Meanwhile, salad, sushi, avocado, pasta, cheese, cake, burger, banana, biscuit, ice cream, fries, seafood, sandwich, steak and junk food all correlated with at least a 50 percent boost in messages. Pizza, hot dog, sausage, eggplant, taco, ribs, bbq, burrito, pho and noodles were also associated with positive net increases.

In fact, the only two words Zoosk identified as decreasing inbound messages were, oddly, fried chicken, which netted a 15 percent drop, and the biggest buzzkill of them all, yams, which left inbound messages down 70 percent. Who knew yams were so unsexy?

Apparently, broad food terms can be beneficial as well. “Profiles that contain the word foodie receive 82% more incoming messages, while those who mention the word cook receive 26% more incoming messages,” Zoosk explained.

But once someone reaches out to you, Zoosk suggests holding off on diving right into the food talk. “Though mentioning food in your profile can lead to more incoming messages, it probably shouldn’t be the first thing you talk about with someone,” the dating brand stated. “For the most part, mentioning food in an initial message doesn’t result in many more replies.” However, there is one “surprising” exception, “which is eggplant, which gets 10% more responses than the average.” Oh, come on, Zoosk. You run an online dating service! Stop being so coy: You know what the eggplant is all about!