Synopses & Reviews
We make hundreds of decisions about food every day. Some of them we know we’re making: What to eat, how to eat it, and many more. What we don’t know is how each of those decisions is influenced by our environment, the food industry, and our own irrational appetites.
Now, How We Eat with Our Eyes and Think with Our Stomachs exposes the hidden influences on how we make those decisions and form eating habits — ultimately equipping readers to eat more intelligently. Drawing from the latest research in behavioral psychology, biology, and neuroscience, as well as from pop culture, journalist Melanie Mühl and psychologist Diana von Kopp focus on more than 40 compelling, distinct questions and issues: Why do we like the foods we like? Is it because of our environments? Family? Taste buds? (All three?) Is raw food healthier than cooked food? (No!) Why do people overeat? Keep reading, and find out.
Take, for example, "The Color of Flavor" — can the average person taste the difference between red wine and white? What about once the white has been colored red? Is it surprising that they cannot? This may not be news to everyone — but where does this observation lead? That would be the psychological study of product experience, relied upon by the six-hundred-billion dollar food industry — and because of it, our cola is always dark (instead of clear) and butter is artificially colored yellow.
Learn how we diet with our brain (Think you’re hungry? Think again.), feast with our feelings (Banning sugared soda? Anticipate a surge in consumption.), eat with our eyes (Don’t look at the buffet!), and other influences on our everyday eating habits. How We Eat with Our Eyes and Think with Our Stomachs enables us to become more intelligent about which questions are being asked, and offers insights that we’ll surely remember the next time we buy groceries, sit down at a restaurant, or go into the pantry looking for something to eat.
Review
"Of all of the books I’ve read on food, psychology, and eating behavior this year, How We Eat with Our Eyes and Think with our Stomachs is far and away the most interesting, useful, and entertaining." Brian Wansink, PhD, author of Mindless Eating and Slim by Design
Review
"An entertaining tour through some of the fascinating research on how our minds govern what we like to eat. It will change the way you approach your dinner." Bob Holmes, author of Flavor: The Science of Our Most Neglected Sense
Review
"These essays are not only easy and amusing, they are also scientifically supported by appropriate studies and enriched with expert opinions. All this makes reading a pleasure." MIT Technology Review (Germany)
Review
"Journalist Muhl and psychologist von Kopp use behavioral psychology, biology, and neuroscience to uncover how our decisions about food are made." Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Melanie Mühl is a features editor at Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) as well as a feature journalist. She is coauthor of FAZ’s blog Food Affair, which reaches hundreds of thousands of readers per month.
Fascinated by the fact that a factor as simple and indispensable as our daily food has an immense impact on our brain, our performance, and our well-being, licensed psychologist Diana von Kopp dove into research on the subject and has been writing FAZ’s blog Food Affair ever since.