A friend of mine, knowing the journey I am on, just sent me a great book called Mindless Eating- Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. His view on food and how we manage our relationship to it comes from a researchers point of view and provides great insight. He is the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and Nutritional Science at Cornell University, where he is director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab.
In the first chapter of his book he poses a question I have always wondered about- "Why do we overeat food that doesn't even taste good?" His answer is-
"We overeat because there are signals and cues around us that tell us to eat. It's simply not in our nature to pause after every bite and contemplate whether we are full. As we eat, we unknowingly-- mindlessly-- look for signals or cues that we have had enough...like everyone else has finished eating and has left the table...or there is no more food to eat. "
This is why living in a super-sized world has made us become super-sized and morbidly obese as a society. The solution, as I am discovering in this book, is to take charge of our "signals" and "cues" so they do not debase our efforts but instead support them with "right eating" decisions....like not eating food that doesn't even taste good.
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