Master Dilettante

Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink, Ph.D., is a fantastic book for anyone trying to control his or her diet. The book does not prescribe a particular diet — you won’t find a single menu or food choice in it. Rather, the book uses anecdotes and studies to demonstrate that a plethora of environmental factors influence how much and what we eat. The unstated presumption is that awareness is the first step in change. Each chapter describes a principle that causes overeating or eating poorly and then provides practical solutions. The solutions are common-sense yet compelling in their simplicity. Still, as with any diet, discipline is the key to success.

A summary of each chapter:

• Think 20 Percent—More or Less. “We overeat because there are signals and cues around us that tell us to eat.” Wansink describes two experiments, one in which subjects tended to eat more popcorn when given larger bags than when given smaller bags and one in which California-branded wine enhanced the overall perception of a meal relative to South Dakota-branded wine. Because Americans tend to stop eating when full rather than when no longer hungry, eaters should dish out 20% less than they think they want to eat and, in doing so, when it comes to fruits and vegetables, dish out 20% more.
• See All You Eat. Lack of awareness of the quantity we are consuming allows us to overeat. For example, study subjects that continuously saw the bones of the chicken wings they consumed ate fewer than study subjects for whom the bones were continuously cleared. Prison inmates in the Midwest gained 20-25 pounds over six months, because their orange baggy jumpsuits concealed that they were gaining weight. And diners eating from rigged, “bottomless” soup bowls ate 50% more than those eating from normal soup bowls. “See it before you eat it” by pre-plating all food to be consumed and “see it while you eat it” by leaving, for example, empty wine bottles and glasses on a table when pouring fresh glasses.
• Be Your Own Tablescaper. The “tablescape” is “the placement and types of dishes, silverware, drinking glasses, and serving bowls” and “is filled with hidden persuaders” that can increase or decrease how much we eat. American kitchens and food packages tend to be larger than in other parts of the world and lead Americans to make bigger meals and eat more food. For example, study subjects given larger boxes of spaghetti, larger jars of spaghetti sauce and more ground beef prepared 23% larger meals than those given smaller boxes — and diners in both cases ate 92% of what was served. Control the tablescape by (1) mini-sizing boxes and bowls (repackage larger boxes into smaller bags and containers), (2) becoming an illusionist (serve food on smaller plates and beverages in taller, thinner glasses) and (3) being aware of the “double danger of leftovers” (take a limited amount of leftovers out of the refrigerator to avoid overconsumption).
• Make Overeating a Hassle, Not a Habit. Most people are on “See-Food” diets, eating everything they see. Opaque-covered dishes of candy in an office get consumed from less than clear-covered dishes (out of sight, out of mind), and the knowledge that donuts are in the office kitchen makes them more likely to be consumed; the same power of suggestion works for healthy foods, too. At warehouse clubs like Costco, individuals tend to spend and buy more — of jumbo-sized packages. Create barriers to overconsumption: (1) “leave serving dishes in the kitchen or on a sideboard” (out of reach), (2) “‘de-convenience’ tempting foods” (e.g., store them in remote areas of a pantry or at the back of the refrigerator) and (3) “snack only at the table and on a clean plate” (making impulse snacking “less convenient to serve, eat, and clean up”).
• Create Distraction-Free Eating Scripts. We tend to follow routines, or “eating scripts” when we eat. We tend to eat more when eating with family or friends who eat a lot or quickly. Men tend to overeat and women tend to under-eat on dates. And everyone tends to eat more while watching TV. Certain types of cuisine, odors and even the weather influence what and how much we eat. Re-script your diet danger zones (the patterns of eating) around dinners, snacks, parties, restaurants and desks/dashboards. Distract yourself before you snack (”make your snacking life less distracting and less alluring by eating in one room only, such as the dining room and kitchen”). And serve yourself before you start (dish out rations rather than eating directly from a box, bag or serving bowl).
• Create Expectations That Make You a Better Cook. “Taste” is as much mental as physical; we taste what we expect to taste. Soldiers eating in the dark couldn’t differentiate between strawberry and chocolate yogurt. Lemon Jello dyed red could be mistaken for cherry Jello. Menu descriptions and brands affect food perceptions. When serving food, use positive and descriptive words — any adjective! — to make healthy food taste better. Also, fix the atmosphere when you fix the food (soft lights, soft music, soft colors, nice plates, nice tablecloth, nice glasses — the details matter).
• Make Comfort Foods More Comforting. Comfort foods can be both healthy and unhealthy, and what comforts varies by gender. The comfort comes from conditioning from prior associations, often from childhood. Wansink advises against depriving yourself of comfort foods but instead eat them in smaller amounts and emphasize the healthy ones. He also suggests rewiring comfort foods by developing routines featuring smaller portions and healthier combinations.
• Crown Yourself as the Official Gatekeeper. A “nutritional gatekeeper” in a family controls around 72 percent of what the family eats and, over the course of a child’s early life, affects that child’s food preferences. Be a good marketer of healthy food when describing it, offer a wide variety of foods to children, fill half of every main meal plate with vegetables, salad, etc. and make serving sizes official by giving snacks in children in sealed bags or other containers (avoiding the sight of extra snacks).
• Portion-Size Me. Fast food appeals to our desire for variety, convenience and value. Fast food restaurants have begun to make nutritional information more available, but consumers don’t actually read the information or monitor caloric intake. Consumers tend to believe Subway is more healthy than McDonald’s because of Subway’s marketing of health claims. Similarly, food labels in grocery stores can provide the illusion that food is healthier than it is. “Beware of the health halo” that allows people to eat significantly more quantities of a food perceived as healthy. Also, “think small or super-share” by ordering smaller combinations, discarding extra fries on the way to the table or ordering a value meal combination and sharing it with another.
• Mindlessly Eating Better. Finally, Wansink concludes with a chapter on “Mindlessly Eating Better.” He recognizes that better eating means different things to different people, from eating less to eating without guilt to eating more nutritiously to eating with greater enjoyment. Wansink suggests individuals follow the chapter-ending tips he provides. Two additional tips are (1) making food-trade-offs (bargaining for when and what to eat) and (2) developing food policies (e.g., serve 20% less, no second helpings of any starch, no eating at the desk, etc.). Wansink sugests choosing three (3) 100-calorie changes in a year.

Does any of this work? I lost five pounds in one month simply by eating a . . . little . . . bit . . . less. I’ve been departing from a number of the suggestions lately and gaining some of that weight back, but I’m so confident in the lessons that I know exactly how to get rid of it again!

For more information, buy the book and see Wansink’s Web site on Mindless Eating.