40 | New Scientist | 1 January 2022with the presentation so the meal feels like
a treat. According to this research, the very
worst thing you can do is to eat something
insipid that leaves you feeling deprived,
just because it has slightly fewer calories
than a more appetising option. You will
just want to eat more.
It is also worth considering the effect on the
mind-gut connection of activities that distract
you from the experience of eating. If you watch
TV or work during meals, you won’t appreciate
the food going into your mouth, and may not
even remember how much you have eaten
later. As Higgs points out, you may be in a
very similar situation to people with amnesia.
It is a cliché, but eating slowly and taking
care to chew each mouthful can improve
the orosensory enjoyment of what you are
eating, which can in turn trigger a greater
hormonal reaction to the food and leave
you feeling fuller for longer.
A sense of indulgence seems equally
important if you have a treat. In a Canadian
and French study from 2016, researchers
first encouraged participants to vividly
imagine the taste, smell and texture of
various sweet treats. The participants
were then asked how much they wanted of
a delicious-looking chocolate cake. You might
expect that picturing these tasty delights
would have increased people’s lust for cake,
leading them to opt for a bigger slice. But
most of the participants showed the opposite
reaction. They were more likely to select aDavid Robson is a science journalist in
London. His new book The Expectation
Effect: How your mindset can
transform your life is out on 6 JanuaryOur attitudes to food affect how
full it makes us feel (see main story),
but they could also influence our
absorption of vitamins and minerals,
according to an experiment from
the 1970s. A group of researchers
studying iron deficiency in a Thai
population gave people a meal in
one of two forms: a traditional Thai
vegetable curry and a “homogenised”
version put through a food processor.
The results were astonishing.
On average, people absorbed 70 per
cent more iron when the meal was
presented in its traditional form than
when it was a homogenised paste.
To see whether the effect endured
across cultures, the researchers
performed the same test on Swedish
participants eating a stereotypically
Western meal, a hamburger served
with mashed potatoes and green
beans. Again, iron absorption was
higher when the food was served
as a recognisable meal rather than
a puree. This is surprising since the
nutrients should, if anything, have
been more readily available to the
digestive system when they were
presented in the mushy paste.
Instead, it appears to be the sense
of anticipation for the food – whether
it seemed appetising or not – that
influenced the absorption.Missing
nutrients
smaller portion than those who hadn’t been
primed to think about the sensory qualities.
That may seem far-fetched, but various studies
have shown that greedily imagining a treat can
help people curb their eating.
Ultimately, if you want to reduce how
much you are consuming, the aim should be
to realise that you can get all the pleasure you
need from fewer mouthfuls, so that you choose
a small portion and feel less tempted to snack
later on. Whether you are eating a salad or a
chocolate bar, a sense of celebration will help
you to control your calorie intake.
Let’s be clear: you can’t turn a lettuce leaf
into a feast with the power of your mind.
A crash diet is unlikely to be much easier
with these small psychological steps, and they
can’t give you carte blanche to eat whatever
you like. For regimes that involve a reasonable
reduction in calories over a long and sustained
period, however, these small mental shifts
could certainly help. With the right mindset,
we can sometimes have our cake and eat it,
and still meet our health goals. ❚A sense of celebration
will help to control
what you eat10’^000 HOURS
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