Hear the Crunch When Eating Your Popcorn? May Make You Eat Less
Admit it. The sound of your husband crunching his breakfast cereal sometimes makes you consider divorce. But did you know the sounds you make when eating food affect how you eat? According to researchers at Brigham Young University and Colorado State University, the noise your food makes while you're eating can have a significant effect on how much food you eat. The "Crunch Effect," as they call it, suggests you're likely to eat less if you're more conscious of the sound your food makes while you're eating. Therefore, watching loud TV or listening to loud music while eating can mask eating sounds that keep you in check. "For the most part, consumers and researchers have overlooked food sound as an important sensory cue in the eating experience," says study coauthor Gina Mohr, an assistant professor of marketing at CSU, at newswise.com. "Sound is typically labeled as the forgotten food sense," adds Ryan Elder, assistan...