Mindless Eating Is A Nourishing Read
November 28, 2006
Mindless Eating may be the most nourishing book you read all year. It is full of
tasty morsels dipped in a rich, creamy, sometimes sarcastic sauce of humor,
spiced with common sense and reachable goals.
The author of this Bantam Books banquet, Brian Wansink, is director of the
Cornell University Food and Brand Laboratory. He also is an eater, he readily
admits--of everything from French fries to fine French cuisine. He is as apt to
give in to the lures of the palate as the next guy. But unlike the next guy, his
years of research at Cornell, and at a similar University of Illinois lab he
founded earlier, gave him some clues to ways we can continue to munch and still
lose weight.
Unlike the typical "diet book," his volume has a healthy serving of
sanity. On his way to getting a Ph.D. at Stanford and lecturing worldwide, he
admits to having yielded to temptation as his TKE fraternity brothers at Wayne
State College in Nebraska watched him down the usual undergraduate servings of
noodles, beer, snacks, or anything free put in front of his mouth. Many of his
experiments involve graduate students, always ready to stuff themselves in the
name of science.
From them, and other researchers whom he credits often,, he has learned that we
are influenced by the size of plates (they are larger today, so we think we have
to fill them up). Packages make a difference, too. A large bag of corn chips in
front of us means we will consume more; so why don't we try smaller bags"
We may not eat much of the fried chicken in an ordinary restaurant, he suggests,
but make it a place with reservations, a tablecloth, background music and a menu
title like "Grandma's Special Recipe Southern-Style Chicken a la
Brian" and we will fall for it like a ton of Twinkies. We tend to eat more
than we think we do, he says, thanks to larger portions, packaging, advertising
and fancy names.
Price plays a role, too. As an impovershed student, he once tried to convince a
date that he had bought a bottle of fine wine for their picnic. All he did was
have the liquor store clerk switch pricetags, so the poor girl thought she was
drinking a $9.50 bottle of good stuff from Normandy instead of some $2 gem
called "Night Train Express".
One food expert called Wansink the "Sherlock Holmes of Food" because
of his sneaky, scientific investigative skills. Another observer, Robin Jenkins
of the Chicago Tribune, termed him "the wizard of why" because of his
ability to answer so many food questions. The U.S. government called him to test
foods that soldiers eat and how they should be packaged.
Some 95 percent of those who lose weight on a well-meaning but short-lived diet
soon gain it back, Wansink says; deprivation diets simply do not work. His
advice: eat smaller portions; don't fall for all of the advertising you see or
hear; don't be so impressed by the "low calorie" claims of an item
that you think you can safely eat three more bags than you normally would. Find
smaller dishes and containers; when you are finished or can see the end is near,
you are more likely to stop. In one creative experiment the Cornell guru devised
a "bottomless soup bowl" for his unsuspecting student guinea pigs. One
group ate from a contraption tied to tubes under the table, which refilled
itself constantly. But another group that got its soup from a conventional bowl
saw the bottom and recognized that they should stop. We do not stop eating when
we are "filled up," Wansink has found; if more food is put in front of
us, we will put it down the hatch.
In the name of science, he has had grad students to his home to party. On one
occasion, the snacks were in one or two large bowls. The students snarfed them
down quickly. The next night, the goodies were in fewer, smaller bowls, in
different rooms. Consumption dropped dramatically.
His adventures with Buffalo wings, popcorn, M&Ms, glasses full of Scotch or
a good Bordeaux and big burgers are accompanied by a side dish (the appendix)
which compares popular diets. It offers sage advice on how to time our eating,
resist culinary lures and Madison Avenue, and still enjoy food without fear of
fatness. People eat with their eyes, not with their stomachs, he has told
interviewers...and those pesky other senses influence our decisions also. We
think we eat just enough to satisfy basic hunger, but we are being fooled all
the time. (We even tend to eat more when we are with people we like.)
If you want something that tastes good and reads well, pick up Mindless Eating
and laugh while you slowly lose weight. Tighten your belt; read the clues to
happy health with which the volume is lightly seasoned. WARNING: You will want
to consume large portions of this book at one sitting.
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Contact: Sandra Cuellar/Jack Kennedy
Cornell Food & Brand Lab
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com
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