Product DescriptionIn this illuminating and groundbreaking new book, food psychologist Brian Wansink shows why you may not realize how much you’re eating, what you’re eating–or why you’re even eating at all.
• Does food with a brand name really taste better? • Do you hate brussels sprouts because your mother did? • Does the size of your plate determine how hungry you feel? • How much would you eat if your soup bowl secretly refilled itself? • What does your favorite comfort food really say about you? • Why do you overeat so much at healthy restaurants?
Brian Wansink is a Stanford Ph.D. and the director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab. He’s spent a lifetime studying what we don’t notice: the hidden cues that determine how much and why people eat. Using ingenious, fun, and sometimes downright fiendishly clever experiments like the “bottomless soup bowl,” Wansink takes us on a fascinating tour of the secret dynamics behind our dietary habits. How does packaging influence how much we eat? Which movies make us eat faster? How does music or the color of the room influence how much we eat? How can we recognize the “hidden persuaders” used by restaurants and supermarkets to get us to mindlessly eat? What are the real reasons most diets are doomed to fail? And how can we use the “mindless margin” to lose–instead of gain–ten to twenty pounds in the coming year?
Mindless Eating will change the way you look at food, and it will give you the facts you need to easily make smarter, healthier, more mindful and enjoyable choices at the dinner table, in the supermarket, in restaurants, at the office–even at a vending machine–wherever you decide to satisfy your appetite.
From the Hardcover edition.
What Others Say
Mindful Reading!
This is great info about how we really respond to food and how appearance, smell, ambiance, etc impact our relationship to food. The author's research is interesting and useful.
An enjoyable read about eating behavior
This is not a diet book, it is a well written look into the subconscious psychology of eating. I love how it approached the way we all make assumptions and decisions about food (how much is enough, why sometimes there is never enough, how no one can be perfect about making appropriate food decisions subconsciously). There was a great mix of research, anecdotes, and a humble author sharing his own behaviors. A book we could all use a look through. I recommend the book "Fast Food Nation" as a compliment to this piece.
Good read
Brian Wansink has some wonderful research to share in the book. It's a great resource for nutritionists and those with a desire to eat healthier alike.
thought provoking and effective
I bought Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, along with The Rules of "Normal" Eating: A Commonsense Approach for Dieters, Overeaters, Undereaters, Emotional Eaters, and Everyone in Between!, about two years ago. When I went for my last physical, I discovered that I had lost 28 pounds over the course of those two years. I have not been "on a diet," or denying myself things I really wanted to eat.
I credit Mindless Eating with helping me reevaluate how I choose what to eat, and how I present it to myself (portion sizes, etc)... I credit The Rules of "Normal" Eating with helping me tune into my body's needs.
It may be that I was just ready to eat more sensibly, but these two books will put you on the path if you're able to really hear what ... Read More
This is eye opening!!
This opened my eyes to the way our food suppliers process and package food to get into our stomachs. I hope to apply some of the psychology I learned from Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think into my food buying habits. I'd also like to pass this on to my children so they can be informed and sensible comsumers.
