“Fooled by Food”: part THREE

“Big Food” will do just about anything to sell their product to you so that they will make a profit.  It’s psychological manipulation using visuals and with fat, salt, & sugar mixed in for measure.  At home, people can work at interventions to change “Big Food” success.

Changing the sizes of the glasses, bowls, and dishes that you use at home to smaller is a place to start.  When all of your glasses are 8oz, a 16 or 20oz glass looks enormous.  If you have in your cupboards 2 cup bowls versus 4 cup bowls, you will likely eat less cereal:  you can’t overflow the 2 cup bowl, and your brain will think the full 2 cup bowl full of cereal is enough.

Eat among healthy eaters who know portion sizes and practice portion control (work on it together!).  Professor Brian Wansink of Cornell University reports in the  CSPI April edition that, “We brought young men and women into buffet lines and tracked how much they took of different foods compared to what the people in front of them took.  When the woman in front took, …, one cup more food than average, the woman behind would behave similarly.  This is the strongest for women, but has no impact on guys.”.

Dr Wansink also gave us insight as to pictures on boxes!  College students were shown 3-D mockup packages with pictures of either just a few crackers or many crackers on the front.  The students were given a survey with small bags of crackers (each had 30 crackers inside).  They were told that they could eat the crackers while they took the survey.  The students who saw the boxes with more crackers on the front ate more crackers.  When asked how many crackers are in a serving,  the students who saw the box with the picture of more crackers guessed a higher number.

– Picture taken from the CSPI’s “Nutrition Action Health Letter”, April 2013 edition, page 4

The health halo tricks people ALL THE TIME!  People were given ordinary foods that were labeled “organic” or not.  When they thought the foods were organic, they rated the calories about 20% lower.  Health halos follow foods that say “pesticide free”, “locally grown”,  “gluten-free”, etc.  Almost any food with a healthful identifier makes people think the calories are lower, even if the claim has NOTHING to do with calories.

Last word for today…..

People DO underestimate the calories in restaurant meals.  They underestimate by TWENTY FIVE PERCENT.  Professor Wansink reports that if people break things down by the components of the meal:  “how many calories are in that sandwich?  How many in those fries?  How many in that drink? – people are much more accurate.”.  So your nugget in summing the calories in your meal:  take the components of it  apart then add them up.  Looking at the individual items will help you be more accurate.  Remember:

• The higher the calories, the more we tend to underestimate.
• Studies have shown that the bigger the meal is, the more people underestimate how much they eat.
• When meals are bigger, the underestimation is up to 50%.

Check in tomorrow!  Practical tips are coming!!!!