Hot MedFax

I don't need another reason to overeat but now a new study is saying that I have to be careful what words I read. Certain words can make us eat more.  Great.   Researchers have identified how food word cues influenced by both stress and genetics can be associated with increased food desire and intake, according to newswise.com.   "Food cues" come in many forms including emotions, images, smells, tastes and even food words. Food words could be considered a relatively minimal food cue compared with images or smells; however, because they are ubiquitous in advertising and other contexts, they have significant potential to impact eating behavior. Who doesn't associate bread baking with mom's kitchen?  Well, maybe not mine, but that's the cozy, comforting feeling many of us get when there's that delicious buttery smell wafting around.  Does seeing the word make us hunger for it?  Some, I suppose.  But the image certainly might. In one...

OK.  So there are the calories we have to count.  The fat and sodium content.  The portion size.  And now a new study is telling us we have to pay attention to how the menu is worded because that affects our portion size. Can't we just eat a meal and enjoy it anymore?! Newswise.com reports that a new study out of Cornell University says that the way restaurants describe a menu item makes us eat more, or less. Consumers "use such labels to dictate how much food they think is a 'normal' portion, and then adjust their intake accordingly," according to the story. "People are willing to pay more for a portion that sounds larger, but they also are apt to eat more of an enormous portion if they believe it is ‘regular’ to do so,” newswise.com quotes David R. Just, associate professor at Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics. Just conducted the study with Brian Wansink, professor of marketing at Cornell. Both authors are affiliated with the Cornell Food...