Eating Life-Hacks

I love brain science… all those whacky experiments psychologists do to see how we behave given different prompts. A whole industry has grown up around the idea of knowing better and doing better. Yet so much of what we read about self-improvement involves whipping ourselves into shape… and I use the word “whipping” deliberately.

Perhaps the solution to doing better doesn’t have to be painful. Life hacking might be the cure for what ails us.

A leading behavioural scientist named Brian Wansink thinks that changing your surroundings can vastly improve your success in changing your behaviour. He’s the author of “Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life” and the director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, and he and his team have been conducting those whacky studies for years. Specifically, he’s looked at what’s different in people’s environments and how that impacts on their waistlines.

He says, “My latest research has found subtle ways to tweak our homes, workplaces, schools, restaurant dining and grocery shopping so we mindlessly eat less instead of more.”

Do you believe the colour of your dinner plate can make a difference in how much you eat? Wansink’s team asked sixty people to a free pasta lunch and gave them either a red plate or a white plate. Half the people were offered a marinara pasta buffet (red sauce); half were offered the Alfredo pasta buffet (white sauce).

Researchers weighed each person’s plate and found that those when the plate color matched the pasta color, people served themselves about 18% more. Lesson: if you want to cut down on white food, eat off dark dinner plates.

In my house we have a small dinner table, so I tend to let people serve themselves off serving dishes in the kitchen and then come to the table. It’s a convenience thing. But Wansink’s team found it’s also a smart thing if you don’t want to overeat. Turns out folks who serve from stove- or counter-tops, instead of putting servicing dishes right on the dinner table, ate about 19% less. Having to get up to get that second or third reduces how much we put in our mouths.

Of course, if there are things you want your kids to eat more of… salad, fruit, or veggies, sticking those things within easy reach means they’re more likely to be consumed. So that fruit bowl is a good idea. And leaving the carrots in the centre of the table means more will likely get eaten!

Do you keep your cereal or snacks on the kitchen counter. You might want to move those puppies. Wansink’s team that when open bags of snacks or cereal sat on counters, those people tended to weigh more than their neighbours who kept their food in cupboards out of sight. This was true even if the amount of snacks purchased were about the same. Goodies are in sight offer more temptation. So stick ‘em where you can’t see ‘em.

We all know that eating at home is healthier than eating out. Yes, we do, we know that. We still like to eat out, but we shouldn’t be surprised to find it does our waistlines no good. Did you know that eating out just a couple of times a week might undo all that good eating you do at home. Still in the early stages, Wansink’s research is coming up with ways to help. He says, “This is preliminary, but so far it looks like people ordered healthier foods if they sat by a window or in a well-lit part of the restaurant.”

Other findings:

the further you sit from the door of the restaurant the more likely you are to order dessert


sit close to a TV screen, and you’re prolly gonna order fried foods


sit close to the bar and you’ll drink three more alcoholic beverages that the guys just one table further away.

So when you go to a restaurant, if you want to keep being good, stay in a lighted area, close to the door but away from the bar.