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1-Page Summary of Mindless Eating

Overview

Mindless Eating offers a look at how we eat without thinking about it, and the consequences of eating too much. The book also gives us tips on how to trick ourselves into eating only as much food as our bodies need.

You’ll also learn about marketing tactics that make people salivate over otherwise boring foods. You can use these tips to help you eat healthier.

Big Idea #1: Restaurants and marketers can use all kinds of tricks to influence what we eat.

Do you think that marketing and advertising have no effect on the way people shop? You may believe that other people are influenced by clever ads, but not you.

Although most people think they are not influenced by marketing, it turns out that there is some marketing that works on everyone. For example, adding positive description to the name of a dish increases sales and customer satisfaction.

In a study, the same menu was served twice but with different names. The first time it was called “Seafood Filet”, and the second time it was called “Succulent Italian Seafood Filet”. People who had seen the more descriptive name thought that dish tasted better than those who saw the less descriptive name. They also felt that they were being treated well at this restaurant despite getting exactly the same thing as before.

Moreover, branding can also impact our perception of food. For instance, we often presume Coca-Cola, Ben & Jerry’s or other recognizable brands are great tasting ice creams that have made it big in the market. We sometimes even believe they taste better than their generic counterparts (although blind tests show otherwise). Regardless, we pay more for these name brand products at supermarkets and grocery stores.

Finally, we’re also affected by things like lighting and music when we eat. When the lights are bright and the music has a quick tempo, we tend to eat more quickly than with slow music and dim or natural light.

Big Idea #2: We can manipulate the subconscious factors that affect our appetite to our own benefit.

Food choices can be influenced by adjectives. For example, if a dish is described as “succulent” instead of just “good,” people will rate it higher in taste.

Marketers are able to affect our food choices because we tend not to think about what we eat. We can use this fact to our advantage by fooling ourselves into thinking that a meal is bigger than it actually is, so that we feel full after eating less. This way, if we want to lose weight, for example, instead of just having small meals all the time, we can add low-calorie garnishes so that the meals appear larger and satisfy us more.

We can trick our subconscious into eating less by changing how we decide to stop eating during a meal. We usually follow social cues and environmental scripts to determine when we’re full, but that’s not based on physical needs.

For example, if you’re watching a movie with a bucket of popcorn on your lap, you probably won’t think about whether you’re really hungry anymore or not. Instead, you’ll follow the script that’s familiar to watch movies.

Big Idea #3: The size of your serving – and the plate it’s on – can fool you into eating more than you need.

As we’ve already seen, our subconscious plays a big part in how much we eat. The most obvious factor affecting that is the presentation of food.

Studies have shown that if you give people bigger plates, they will eat more. This has been proven with movie-goers given buckets of popcorn and told to fill them up. The buckets were filled so full it was impossible to finish the amount in one sitting. Even though the popcorn was old and stale, those who received larger containers ate more than those who had smaller containers even though they didn’t want to finish all of their food.