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Now how's this?  Reading about Donald Trump today can make you fat tomorrow. Well, that's not quite true but it could be.  According to new research , bad news today can influence a country's weight. What’s in the newspaper today can predict how skinny or fat a country’s population will be tomorrow, says new research published in BMC Public Health by Brian Wansink, Professor and Director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab, and Brennan Davis, Associate Professor of Marketing from California State University at San Luis Obispo at newswise.com. According to the study, food words trending today will predict a country’s obesity level by 2018 ¬– just three years from now! If you're like me and look forward to Wednesdays and the food section in The New York Times, be very scared.  The study analyzed all the food words mentioned in The Times and The Times of London over the past 50 years and statistically correlated them with each country’s annual Body Mass ...

I suppose it shouldn't surprise us.  But a new survey has found that we tend to think the food's better when we pay more for it at a restaurant. The study suggests taste perception, as well as feelings of overeating and guilt, can be manipulated by price alone, according to newswise.com. “We were fascinated to find that pricing has little impact on how much one eats, but a huge impact on how you interpret the experience,” the Web site quotes Brian Wansink, Ph.D., a professor at the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University who oversaw the research. “Simply cutting the price of food at a restaurant dramatically affects how customers evaluate and appreciate the food.” The study showed that customers who pay more at a restaurant buffet perceive the food as tastier than the same food offered at a lower price. Those in the study who paid $8 for a buffet reported enjoying their food on average 11 percent more than those who paid $4, though the t...

It could be.  A  new study has found that happier thoughts lead to healthier food. Sound a little crazy?  Well, researchers have discovered that mood and food are connected, and if you want to lose weight, think a happy thought. How many of us have stepped on the scale, been mortified, then felt anger and hatred for our shape course through our bodies? It's hard to think happy thoughts when you're heavy, I admit.  But  “people use food to either maintain a good mood or regain a good mood, and if you’re already in a good mood, you tend to eat more healthfully than if you’re in a bad mood,” said study author Brian Wansink a professor in Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, at newswise.com. Study authors note, "W hen people are in a good mood, things seem OK, and they can take a big-picture perspective. This kind of thinking allows people to focus on the more abstract aspects of food, including how healthy it is.” But is this really ...

We get an "F." That's what the government sgives our dietary habits , according to Jane Brody.  The Center for Public Science periodically compiles a report card on how we're doing and we, well, flunked. Brody writes, "The analysis of changes in food consumption from 1970 to 2010 reveals that we still have a long way to go before we come close to meeting dietary guidelines for warding off obesity and chronic health problems like diabetes   and heart disease." Though there is some good news, she notes. "Our consumption of added sweeteners, though still significantly higher than it was in 1970, has come down from the 'sugar high' of 1999 when the average was 89 pounds per person." But an average of 78 pounds per person in 2010, mostly as sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, is still too much, the report points out. Brody says we get a B-plus for cutting back on fats and oils, the highest grade awarded,. But...."Yes, we’ve dramati...

A new study has found that, no matter how hard we try, the pounds we so painstakingly lose, just about all the time, come back. Researchers have discovered that "the way the stomach detects and tells our brains how full we are becomes damaged in obese people but does not return to normal once they lose weight, according to new research from the University of Adelaide ." I don't know about you but when I'm trying to lose weight (just about always), I have to work really hard to make sure I stop eating when I'm full.  I have a variety of methods.  I put my fork down between bites.  I try to drink a lot of water.  And when I've truly had enough, I don't decide to go back for seconds because hey, they just look so good. I suppose eating in front of the TV, or while standing up, doing chores, probably doesn't help. But the study discovered that "researchers believe this could be a key reason why most people who lose weight on a diet eventua...

I'm wondering.  We're not so crazy about food that's been monkeyed around with -- see genetically modified foods. But would we be averse to actually eating bar codes , mashed into our food? The idea is a good one.  It's to thwart counterfeit drugs, according to Janet Fang at smartplanet.com. She writes, "Honolulu-based startup TruTag Technologies is bringing to market edible bar codes that can be integrated directly into both edible and non-edible products. Businessweek reports ." She notes that we won't even know it's in our foods. "These TruTags are the size of a speck of dust (a gram contains over 12 million unique tags), and they can be scanned to authenticate a product," she notes. TruTags are made entirely of silicon dioxide, also called silica, a compound that is inert, edible, and incredibly durable (with an infinite shelf life and the ability to survive temperatures up to 1,000C), she recounts. Fang explains how the whole th...

Now why does your dog go to his bowl, pick up some food in his mouth, walk away, then drop it on the carpet or floor and eat away?  According to vetstreet.com, it's because of its pack mentality. "When dogs in the wild make a kill, the outranked animals drag pieces of food away so they don't have to fight the leader or a more dominant canine for it," vetstreet.com quotes  Dr.   Julie Albright , MA, DVM, DACVB, an assistant professor of veterinary behavior at the  University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine . "Fighting is obviously very risky, so most animals, especially subordinate ones, will go to great lengths to avoid an altercation," Dr. Albright tells vetstreet.com.   If you use a metal bowl, "The noise of the food moving around in the dish or even his   collar tags hitting the side   can be frightening or annoying," notes Dr. Albright, "so he may be taking the kibble away from the trigger of the sound." Although t...

It's called "eating for your mood " and doctors are finding that there are, indeed, certain foods that can improve your outlook on life. E xperts told CBS 2 that researchers "have identified specific foods that may be helpful in promoting feelings of well being and calm," the story reports. A study published in Nutrition Journal found a direct association between higher levels of nutrient intake and better mental health in 97 people, CBS 2 notes. According to CBS New York, tuna and mackerel (yuck) are two of the foods high in vitamins and essential fatty acids that can help you feel less depressed and anxious.  Webmd.com weighs in with, " Dietary changes can bring about changes in our brain structure (chemically and physiologically), which can lead to altered behavior." If you're not a fish person, don't get upset.  Bananas, olive oil, lean beef, and dates also may do the trick, along with brown rice, spinach and sunflower seeds....

Could it possibly be?  Our kids are eating less sugar today than 15 years ago?  A new study says just that. According to a story by Bruce Horovitz at USA Today, "Kids drank fruit juices 16 fewer times than in 1998."  And the decline is accelerating. You know all those commercials where they tell you the drinks are mostly fruit?  What they don't say is that the rest of it is all sugar. (Read the back of a container some time.)  I love how they're now trying to promote these juices as healthier than soda! "The typical child ate or drank the 20 most common sugary sweets an average 126 times fewer last year than in 1998, reports NPD," including 62 fewer times imbibing carbonated soft drinks and 22 fewer times eating pre-sweetened cereals, Horovitz writes. Are our kids actually turning away from Cocoa Puffs?  (And am I dating myself?!) But apparently, at least in some segments of the food market, our kids are eating less sugary items.  I don't k...

OK.  So do you really know how many calories are in that pomegranate soda?  Mary Clare Jalonick writes that up until now, it's been hard for the government to keep up with all the new foods -- and their nutritional content -- that are constantly streaming into the marketplace. But the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill is hoping to put a stop to that by creating a ginormous map of what Americans are buying and eating, according to Jalonick. Chocolate milk has long interested researchers because, though the government lists chocolate milk with 2% milk as one unit, the UNC group, using scanners from grocery stores and other commercial data "founds thousands of different brands and variations of 2% chocolate milk and averaged them out, Jalonick reports. What they found was that this wasn't just happening with chocolate milk, it was pretty much occurring with every food product.  Can you imagine making sense of all that, enough to truly have accurate cal...

I could hardly believe it myself.  But a new story in The New York Times today says the number of people who hoard in this country is between 3 and 5%. Now, I'm not talking about people like my husband, who saves every newspaper because he's going to read it, he really is, one day soon. But there are people who hoard ashtrays and stuffed animals and clothing and shoes until it's piled all around them.  And maybe it's because I used to love the show, "Hoarders" on TLC, but this fascinated me to learn  that many people do indeed live amid chest-high piles of newspapers and dirty dishes and pet messes and just about anything else you could think of. I had to stop watching because, over time, it was just too depressing to see all these very sad individuals who, usually after some catastrophe -- a divorce, death of a child, a diagnosis of late-stage cancer --  found that buying and buying and buying things, stockpiling things, helped salve the hurt and loss. ...

Bet you're going to find this as hard to believe as I did, but a new study has supposedly found that teens respond more to food ads than to ones for cellphones.  You heard it here first.  (Well, not really -- it was a story that ran today at a blog called Futurity, authored by Jared Wadley-Michigan.) Wadley-Michigan writes that "watching TV commercials of people munching on French fries or cereal resonates more with teens than advertisements about cellphones or the latest car." Apparently brain activity is higher when teens watch food commercials than when they watch non-food ads. "It appears that food advertising is better at getting into the mind and memory of kids," Ashely Gearhardt, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Michigan told Wadley-Michigan. "This makes sense because our brains are hard-wired to get excited in response to delicious foods." Teens watched a video of 20 food and 20 non-food commercials, including thos...

I've always heard it said that good things come in small packages (maybe because I'm barely 5'2), but now advertisers and packagers are learning the same thing. According to a story at the Wall Street Journal today, companies, who know people snack all day, are making it easier to do just that by introducing "new packaging that encourages consumers to eat their food anytime they have an urge to nibble, what some executives have dubbed 'hand-to-mouth' eating," Sarah Nassauer writes. Small amounts of food could drive you to eat more, according to the story. And now companies are making it easier to eat, well, just anywhere.  Nassauer reports that Hershey, maker of Kisses and Reese's Pieces, found that "individual wrappers on bite-size candy were getting in the way of people eating candy in certain settings, like in the car."  So they did something that's proven deadly to me -- removed the wrappers, chopped the candy into bite-size piece...

So maybe, just maybe, it's not a plan, after all.  A new study has found what many of us have already figured out.  If you do away with large soda sizes, people will just buy more small sizes. According to Lara Salahi in The Boston Globe, "People may end up drinking as much or more soda when they are offered smaller beverage sizes, according to a study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego." She adds that the study suggests that this may totally wipe out any gains from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on mega-sized drinks. The mayor, bless his heart, was hoping to get people to adopt more healthy habits overall to cut down on obesity and the diseases like diabetes and heart problems that it can induce.  But many people would rather give up on losing weight than lose their freedom to drink big. And now it looks like it doesn't matter, anyway. Along the same lines, remember when you were in elementary school and all the brownies and ic...

Did you know that healthy cantaloupe is on this list?  Or a cheese called Casu Marzu (more on that later)?  Or Silver Stripe Blaasop? Admittedly, many of these delicacies are not found in the US, but zagat.com recently outlined the 11 foods that kill, and here they are, in order. Fugu blowfish.  This is the fish Japanese executives are seen eating, and then dropping dead.  According to the Web site, fugu "contains a potent poison, tetrodotoxin (emphasis on ‘toxin’), that can cause either of those two scenarios when the fish is improperly prepared." Only licensed chefs are allowed to make it. Tainted cantaloupe (which killed almost 20 people in the last few years). Casu Marzu, or The Zombie Cheese, so-called because it's swarming with live maggots, and making the list because it can destroy your digestive system. Mushrooms with death in their names, or the panther mushroom, green gills and pink gills, man-on-horseback, and the scaly chanterelle. Sannakji (o...

Curious about the calories in your (butter-covered) steak at Outback?  (I was shocked to learn that that's indeed why those steaks taste so good.) You won't be finding out anytime soon, thanks to the power of the massive food and restaurant lobby, who don't really want you to know.  http://www.politico.com/story/2013/01/some-lobbyists-resist-straight-skinny-on-calories-86418.html