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Another book worth reading
May. 13th, 2009 07:03 amI read alot of Diet and Food books. Honestly, I find the topic really interesting because they're information that affects ALL of us, since we ALL eat, and most of us, myself included, need to diet.
The entire subject of Food and Exercise and Nutrition is so.. absolutely complicated. Overcomplicated, maybe.
But that's a rant for another time.
So I picked up Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think We Eat" by Brian Wansink. You've heard of this guy. We all have. He's the guy who... invites a bunch of people over to a superbowl party and offers free wings. Then has the wait staff only bus away the leftovers bones from half the tables and then at the end of the night when everyone goes home, counts all the chicken wings eaten to see whom ate more, those with the chicken wing bone remnants in front of them, or those whose chicken wing bones were taken away (the answer is.. the one with the chicken bones in front of them).
He's the guy that invites people over to a restaurant he knows to try out a fresh soup recipe he knows, where half the people in the crowd have a bowl that empties, and half have a bowl that refills itself from the bottom up and then sees how much soup each person had.
This book 'mindless eating' is about.. all the little cues we take around us that instruct us to eat, whether we need to or not. It's about understanding those cues and then using them to your advantage.
I've only started reading the book, but it's interesting, and kind of scary, honestly.
He gives the details of one experiment. He works together with a Chicago movie theater for a presentation of .. well, the movie doesn't matter. Five days before the movie, they pop the popcorn. Then they let it go stale in a clean environment. Then, right after lunch one day, they offer free popcorn and free drinks to the movie patrons. Half the group gets a Medium Tub of Popcorn. Half the group a large.
During the showing, it's clear no one's enjoying the popcorn. "It tastes like Styrofoam", complains one guy to the management, forgetting the popcorn was free and demanding his money back.
And yet.. despite that, everyone ate it. They kept shoving it into their mouths. And worse than that, those eating out of the large tub, eat more of this garbage than those in the medium tub.
The question is.. why eat this stuff if you don't enjoy it? The answer is.. there were cues all around that day that made people, without even thinking about it, eat. The movie itself. The sound of other people eating popcorn. And, yes, the size of the bucket.
As I said, really interesting and yet really scary. We do this eating without any real clue we're doing it.
It's a really interesting book. I might say more as I finish it, but as of where I am, I'd suggest it to anyone who is also interested in Food and Diet books.
The entire subject of Food and Exercise and Nutrition is so.. absolutely complicated. Overcomplicated, maybe.
But that's a rant for another time.
So I picked up Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think We Eat" by Brian Wansink. You've heard of this guy. We all have. He's the guy who... invites a bunch of people over to a superbowl party and offers free wings. Then has the wait staff only bus away the leftovers bones from half the tables and then at the end of the night when everyone goes home, counts all the chicken wings eaten to see whom ate more, those with the chicken wing bone remnants in front of them, or those whose chicken wing bones were taken away (the answer is.. the one with the chicken bones in front of them).
He's the guy that invites people over to a restaurant he knows to try out a fresh soup recipe he knows, where half the people in the crowd have a bowl that empties, and half have a bowl that refills itself from the bottom up and then sees how much soup each person had.
This book 'mindless eating' is about.. all the little cues we take around us that instruct us to eat, whether we need to or not. It's about understanding those cues and then using them to your advantage.
I've only started reading the book, but it's interesting, and kind of scary, honestly.
He gives the details of one experiment. He works together with a Chicago movie theater for a presentation of .. well, the movie doesn't matter. Five days before the movie, they pop the popcorn. Then they let it go stale in a clean environment. Then, right after lunch one day, they offer free popcorn and free drinks to the movie patrons. Half the group gets a Medium Tub of Popcorn. Half the group a large.
During the showing, it's clear no one's enjoying the popcorn. "It tastes like Styrofoam", complains one guy to the management, forgetting the popcorn was free and demanding his money back.
And yet.. despite that, everyone ate it. They kept shoving it into their mouths. And worse than that, those eating out of the large tub, eat more of this garbage than those in the medium tub.
The question is.. why eat this stuff if you don't enjoy it? The answer is.. there were cues all around that day that made people, without even thinking about it, eat. The movie itself. The sound of other people eating popcorn. And, yes, the size of the bucket.
As I said, really interesting and yet really scary. We do this eating without any real clue we're doing it.
It's a really interesting book. I might say more as I finish it, but as of where I am, I'd suggest it to anyone who is also interested in Food and Diet books.
