"Got My Mind Made Up..."

I’ve been a fan of Brian Wansink’s work ever since I read his book, Mindless Eating-Why We Eat More Than We Think. The book focuses on our awareness of how much, what, and why we’re eating-often without even realizing it.

We hear a lot about “mindful eating”; sitting down and really appreciating our food, waiting before taking another bite and slowly chewing every bite. Mindfulness is a powerful tool for creating health, but it’s not a quick solution. The mindful eater must learn to make conscious choices, again and again, and most of us don’t always have the time or patience to chew our food 100 times, or rest our hands between bites. Wansink’s new work has been focused on how we can kind of “fool” ourself into eating less.

The first suggestion he gives is to have an awareness of container, utensil and plate size for food. You’re in greater danger of overeating from a wide bowl or glass than from a taller and skinner one. When given the choice, a taller container seems like more, when in reality, the wider bowl or glass contains sometimes twice as much milk, cereal, or candy, etc.

Utensils also influence how much we more we eat. When kids as young as four were given a wider bowl, they took 28 percent more cereal, and when adults were given a 3 ounce ice cream scoop instead of a two ounce one, they still scooped the same number of scoops, but at 53 percent more ice cream.

So really, Wansink believes, we can make this work to our advantage by something as simple as using smaller utensils and plates, rather than assuming we can resist the additional food with just willpower. A trick he uses at home is to keep 6 ounce juice glasses next to the 8 ounce and 16 ounce ones. Although nobody really uses them, they make the medium 8 ounce glasses seem generous, and the 16 ounce ones are rarely used (half the amount; half the calories)

An awareness of the way the packaging fools us is another tool he believes can help. When shown pictures on boxes with “health halos”, like organic or pesticide free, or anything on a box with a healthful food identifier, consumers assumed the calories in the food were much lower and ate more of the food. And, when a box had a picture of a larger portion size on the front, people ate more at each sitting.

But we can also be fooled by size labeling. If a bag of chips is labeled “small’, most people feel they can eat more because since it’s a “small”, they’re not overindulging. But if that same bag of chips is labeled “medium” or “large”, people eat less.

So, of course, eating fewer packaged foods is the best solution, but if you must buy packaged food, measure out the portions and read the number of servings in the package. Just eyeballing a food and assuming it’s one serving can grossly underestimate the number of calories you think you are consuming.

Key to his research though, is making healthy foods available and visible. In a study, they found that the first food people saw in the fridge, on the diner table, or on a buffet, influenced their food choices for the whole meal. If they saw a bowl of fruit first, they were more likely to choose fruits or vegetables over unhealthy choices.He suggests serving the healthiest food first at dinner and placing fresh fruits and veggies at eye level in your fridge.

For those of us who try to eat well, this may seem like a given, but even in a restaurant, if bread is the first thing you see at the table, you’re more likely to overindulge on carbs.

One other point he makes is that we really ARE happy with fewer calories; we just THINK we want more.In a study, they gave one group full portions of a brownie or chips, and the other group about a 60 % smaller portion. People ate about 135 calories of the smaller portion and about 250 calories of the larger ones. But 15 minutes later, they rated themselves as equally satisfied.
He believes that once you’ve eaten something, you don’t really remember how MUCH you ate. The taste in your mouth remains, so about 15 minutes later, you remember that the food tasted good, but you don’t really remember how many bites you had.

So, taking a few bites of a snack and waiting 10 or 15 minutes can help with afternoon cravings. Usually it’s the act of eating; taking bite after bite, or the time of day, not real hunger that has you reaching for the next snack.

His new book is called Slim By Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life, out in late 2013. The book looks at what he calls our food radius (where you work, shop, dine, buy groceries), and how awareness and small changes in all of those places can help you lose weight.
Read more at mindlesseating.org