The Nose Knows
The scent of food can often be more powerful than the food itself. The smell of bacon? Heaven. Or how about an apple pie? Or a turkey baking in the oven? Just like the cartoons, we can almost see ourselves floating in mid-air, mindlessly following the wonderful scents wafting by. Brian Wansink and his research […]
Fine North Dakota Wine?
The Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois looks and feels just like a restaurant. That’s because, in a sense, it is. It’s also a lab where consumer psychologists take a glimpse into the working of the human mind and its relationship to food. One night, half of the restaurant/lab […]
Stale Popcorn Anybody?
In a study performed by Brian Wansink (author of Mindless Eating) and his graduate students, he proves that the larger the container put before you, the more you’ll eat. Wansink and his graduate students offered free popcorn to moviegoers one afternoon. Every person who bought a ticket was given either a medium-size or large-size bucket […]
Which is Better: White or Wheat Bread?
From the savory cereals to dusty pancakes and delicious pastas, grains and their flour derivatives have always been a mainstay on so many family dining tables. The “white or wheat” bread controversy and whole grain vs. processed flours debate have been closely examined for the past several years. If you’re considering making some important changes […]
Yesterday I Did Something Scary
Yesterday I did something kind of scary. I invited 6 incredible women friends over to help me read through the manuscript of my new book. Several of these women have had their own struggles with food and weight so they could provide great feedback, based on their own experiences. The reason why this was scary […]
Eating 101 – How the Awareness Begins
In an excerpt from Brian Wansink’s book Mindless Eating, the author retells a conversation with a friend: Over coffee a new friend commented that he’d lost 30 pounds within the past year. When I asked him how, he explained he didn’t stop eating potato chips, pizza, or ice cream. He ate anything he wanted, but […]
Early Eating Habits that Shape you Today
None of us choose to be fat. As a child, we don’t say, “I want to grow up and be large, Mommy!” It happens, often subtly and slowly. Years worth of misguided eating habits begin to settle on our hips and thighs. We ask ourselves, “What went wrong?” “A fat-forming transformation in our eating habits […]
5 Telltale Signs that You May Suffer from Food Addiction
Holidays like Christmas, New Year’s, Valentines Day, Easter, Fourth of July, Halloween and Thanksgiving are usually challenging times for food addicts. Every kind of sugary, starchy, fattening food is on display and the temptations never cease. Everyone gives decadent food as gifts and every party is flowing with delicious options. Most people with food addiction […]
The Deprived Dieter
Most diets are based on the concept of deprivation, in one form or the other. And as we know, they are rarely successful. We deny ourselves everything from chocolate to pizza to pasta in the hopes we’ll beat our own internal system. Yet it is estimated that 95% of people who lose weight gain it […]
Comfort Food & The Mood Myth
Culturally, we are all taught to believe that bad moods = comfort foods. Whether it’s the lonely woman home at night eating a pint of ice cream or the overworked binger who scoffs down a pizza after a stressful day, we believe negative states of mind encourage pig-outs. But is this necessarily true? When Brian […]
