The Cornell Food and Brand Lab, directed by Dr. Brian Wansink, did some studies that showed that people grossly underestimate how many daily food related decisions they make – not by a little but by an average of more than 221 decisions.

And, most people are also either unaware of how their environment influences their decisions — or they’re unwilling to acknowledge it.

Who, What, Where, When, And How Much

In one study the Food and Brand Lab asked 139 people to estimate how many decisions they make about food and beverages during one day. Then they were specifically asked how many “who, what, where, when, and how much” decisions they made for a typical snack, beverage, and meal – and how many meals, snacks, and beverages they ate during a typical date.

14.4 VS. 226.7 Decisions

The researchers then created an index to help them estimate the number of total decisions made daily. On average, people guessed they made 14.4 food related decisions each day. Amazingly, the researchers estimated that the average person in the study made 226.7 food related decisions each day. Obese people who participated in the study made 100+ more food related decisions than overweight people.

Larger Packages, Bowls, And Plates

A second study of 379 people analyzed the effect of environmental factors like package size, serving bowl size, and plate size on how much they ate. Half of the people were assigned to what was called “exaggerated treatment” – they had larger packages, bowls, and plates than the other half of the people in the study. On average, 73% of the people who received “exaggerated treatment” thought they ate as much as they normally would – except they actually ate 31% more than the people who ate from the regular size packages, plates, and bowls.

When they were told how much more they ate and then were asked why they thought they might have eaten more:

• 8% admitted they might have eaten more
• 21% said they didn’t eat more
• 69% said that if they did eat more it was because they were hungry
• Only 4% believed they had eaten more because of the larger sizes that acted as environmental cues.

Bottom Line

We make, on average, 200+ food related decisions each day and those decisions are heavily influenced by environmental factors like the size of food packaging and the bowls and plates we use for our food.

For additional information: Wansink, Brian and Jeffrey Sobal (2007), “Mindless Eating: The 200 Daily Food Decisions We Overlook,” Environment and Behavior 39:1, 106-123.

The post Do You Believe You Make About 200 Food Decisions Every Day? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Losing Track

Friends and family also influence how much you eat. Sometimes you can get so involved in conversation that all the monitoring of what pops into your mouth goes out the window.  Have you ever looked down at your plate and wondered where all the cookies went or how you managed to work your way through the mile high dish of pasta or the four pieces of pizza?  How many tastes did you take of everyone else’s meal and dessert?  Those tastes aren’t like invisible ink.  Those calories count, too.

Who Sets the Pace?

You tend to mimic your table companions. They eat fast, you eat fast.  They eat a lot, you eat a lot.  Ever wonder why you look at some families or couples and they’re both either heavy or slender?  As Brian Wansink, PhD says in his book, Mindless Eating, “birds of a feather eat together.”

How Much More?

Wansink reports on a study that shows how strong the tendency is to increase how much you eat when you eat with others.  Compared to eating alone, you eat, on average:

• 35% more if you eat with one other person
• 75% more with four at the table
• 96% more with a group of seven or more

Why?

The pattern of eating more when we’re in larger groups than when we’re eating alone is common in adults. One reason is a phenomenon called “social facilitation,” or the actions that stem from the stimuli coming from the sight and sound of other people doing the same that that you’re doing. When you’re eating in groups, social facilitation can help override the brain’s normal signals of satiety.

Some Helpful Tips:

• Think about who you are eating with – and why.  If you want to have a blast and don’t care about how much you eat – eat with a big group and chow down.
• If you want to be careful about what and how much you eat, think about eating lunch with your salad (dressing on the side, please) friends rather than the pepperoni pizza group.
• You tend to adjust your eating pace to that of your companions.  So, sit next to the slow eaters rather than the gobblers if you’re trying to control how much goes into your mouth.

The post Other People May Make You Eat More appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

“No, no, no, I’m not hungry,” you say to yourself – and, five minutes later you have a lap full of crumbs and a powdered sugar mustache.

Sound familiar?  Why, oh why, does this happen?  What’s with the loss of control over eating?

According to David Kessler, MD (The End of Overeating), 50% of obese people, 30% of overweight people, and 20% of healthy weight people say they have a loss of control over eating.

Eating Triggers:  Starting a course of events

A trigger is something that sets a course of events in motion, like overeating.

Eating triggers generally fall into three separate categories: food, feelings, and the environment.

Trigger Food

• a specific food that sets off a course of overeating where you lose control and eat an excessive amount
• usually a combo of sugar and fat – like brownies or gooey cookies – or a combo of fat and salt – have you downed your popcorn in the movies, lately?
• Don’t confuse your food triggers with your favorite foods (the ones that you really like), your comfort foods (ones that you link to home and happiness), or food cravings (when you want a food you haven’t had in a while)
• a true food trigger is the actual food, not a feeling or place that triggers the out of control eating – think:  an open bag of chips – bet you can’t eat just one regardless of where you are eating or how you are feeling

Trigger Feeling

• an emotion, good or bad, that causes you to overeat
• anxiety and sadness are common triggers
• food triggers prompt overeating of a specific food;  general out of control overeating — the kind where food is often shoved in the mouth as quickly as possible in large quantities – can be precipitated by an emotional trigger

Trigger Environment

• a specific situation or place that starts a period of overeating
• common examples might be walking into a movie theater (popcorn), going to a buffet restaurant (one or two helpings of everything), attending a sporting event (how many hot dogs?) or visiting a relative (cookies, pie, and cake?)

Eating Triggers Are All Around You

Bottom Line – eating triggers are commonplace. When you bump up against some of yours, recognize them for what they are and have a strategies to deal with them. 

Often the triggers are linked – this happens often, sometimes by design.  Think about the sugar/fat and salt/fat triggers and fast food restaurants, desserts in fancy restaurants, your local bakery, the gas station convenience store.  What do they have in common?  Lots of food with sugar/fat and salt/fat combinations.   They stare you in the face wherever you turn and at whatever hour.  Stir in some feelings and emotions, a not infrequent occurrence, and you have the perfect set-up for overeating.

Ways To Outsmart Food Triggers

• Figure out which food makes you lose control.  Is it potato chips, chocolate chip cookies, ice cream, or mac and cheese?  We all have our particular triggers.

• What kinds of feelings make you run for the fridge?  Is it when you are sad, anxious, really happy, or just procrastinating?  Once you can identify the feeling, try to substitute a behavior other than eating – maybe a walk or a project.  Make a deal with yourself:  if I do X then I can eat Y.  But you have to do X first!

• Be savvy and know when you are in the emotional danger zone where you are on the brink of rapidly spiraling out of eating control.Educate yourself about which kinds of foods are hidden saboteurs – or maybe not so hidden.  Beware the sugar/fat, salt/fat, or sugar/fat/salt combos.

• Educate yourself about which kinds of foods are hidden saboteurs – or maybe not so hidden.  Beware the sugar/fat, salt/fat, or sugar/fat/salt combos.

• Know your environmental triggers.  If the gas station convenience store screams candy bar then pump your gas at a gas station with no store.  If you have a history of overeating at X restaurant then go to Y instead.  If you know that you always overeat at Aunt Mary’s (could be all three triggers:  food, feelings, and environment are operational at her house) then have a strategy or plan in place to handle the situation.  Or maybe invite her to your house.

• Keep the darn trigger foods out of your house.  Or, if they have to be there for other family members, or maybe for a party, make them difficult to get to.  Put them in the basement or the garage.  Make them inconvenient or really difficult to get to.  Not only is out of sight out of mind operational, we also tend to be lazy.  The more effort you have to exert to get to the food, the less likely you are to eat it.

• This is a tough one:  sometimes you have to avoid thinking, talking and reading about food. Brain imaging research suggests that the addictive response of the brain to food could by calmed by not thinking about food. Obviously, you can’t be abstinent from food – you need to eat – but long conversations about it, might be more than your brain can bear before you succumb to the bakery or vending machine.  Don’t linger in the grocery store and skip the gourmet shop that opened three blocks away.

• And, the time tested – wait at least 15 minutes then allow yourself to have the food – often works. Better yet, wait 15 minutes, try to create a diversion to get out of your trigger feeling, and change your environment – get out of the kitchen or away from the bakery aisle.

The post What Triggers Your Overeating? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

No kidding.  You tend to eat for a longer amount of time — and eat more — when you’re with people you like compared to when you eat alone.  It could be because you mindlessly nibble while someone else talks, you’re using the good manners you were taught in fifth grade about not letting someone else eat alone, or you’re just having fun and enjoying your food. Most of us tend to stay at the table longer when we’re with others.   Bottom line:  The longer you stay at the table, the more you eat.

Losing Track

Here’s the other thing:  friends and family influence what you eat.  Sometimes, it’s so easy to get involved with the conversation (or argument) that all the monitoring of what goes into your mouth goes out the window.  Look down at your plate.  Did you ever wonder where all the cookies went or how you managed to work your way through the mile high dish of pasta or the four pieces of pizza?  How many tastes did you take of everyone else’s meal and dessert?  Those tastes aren’t like invisible ink.  Those calories count, too.

Who Sets the Pace?

You tend to mimic your table companions.  They eat fast, you eat fast. They eat a lot, you eat a lot. Ever wonder why you look at some families or couples and they’re both either heavy or slender?  As Brian Wansink, PhD says in his book, Mindless Eating, “birds of a feather eat together.”

96% More

Wansink reports on a study that shows how strong the tendency is to increase the amount that you eat when you eat with others.  Compared to eating alone, you eat, on average:

• 35% more if you eat with one other person

• 75% more with four at the table

• 96% more with a group of seven or more.

SocialDieter Tip:

Think about who you are eating with – and why you’re eating with them.  If you want to have a blast and don’t care about how much you eat – eat with a big group and chow down.  But, if you want to be careful about what and how much you eat, think about eating lunch with a salad (dressing on the side, please) friend rather than the large pepperoni pizza group.  Remember, without thinking about it, you tend to adjust your eating pace to that of your companions.  So, sit next to the slow eaters rather than the gobblers if you are trying to control how much goes into your mouth.

The post Table For 8? You Might Eat 96% More! appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

You’ve been eating all day.  Eating everything – a bagel for breakfast, a chesse Danish for a midmorning snack, lunch with some friends.  This is followed by  a latte in the afternoon – and why not a cute cupcake to go with – or perhaps it’s a workday and you amble down to the hall to the vending machine or the snack room.  Oh, and it’s someone’s birthday so there’s that delicious birthday cake sitting in the middle of the table.  A little nibble of some cheese around six.  Uh oh.  Dinner plans that night – how can you eat more?

Somehow There Always Seems To Be Room

Into the restaurant.  A darn good one.  Good company, too.  How can you not go for it?  The food is supposed to be phenomenal.  You’re not hungry, but you eat, and eat.  Appetizer, entrée, bread, salad, and then it’s time for dessert. But dessert sounds appealing. And the chocolate whatchamacallit is what this restaurant is known for. You order it and eat it – every last fork full.

What Gives (certainly not your waistband)?

Amazingly, the signal to stop eating is usually not because your stomach is full (except in some extreme cases), but, according to Brian Wansink, PhD, author of the book, Mindless Eating,  a combination of things like how much you taste, chew, swallow, how much you think about the food you are eating, and how long you’ve been eating.

Incredibly, the faster most people eat, the more they eat. Eating quickly doesn’t give your brain the chance to get the message that you’re not hungry any more.  Research shows that it takes up to 20 minutes for your body and brain to get the message — a satiation signal — and realize that you’re full.  Think how much you can eat in that time span of 20 minutes – a burger, fries, pie, pizza, ice cream.  This calorie fest is all in added time — the time after your stomach is full but your brain hasn’t gotten the message yet.

Twenty Minutes Or Less

Research has shown that Americans start and finish their meals — and clear the table — in less than 20 minutes.  A study published in the journal Appetite, found that people eating lunch by themselves in a fast food restaurant  finish in 11 minutes, they finish in13 minutes in a workplace cafeteria, and in 28 minutes at a moderately priced restaurant.  Eating with three other people takes about twice as long – which ends up still being a really short chunk of time.

SocialDieter Tip:

Slow down when you eat.  Give your brain a chance to catch up.  How many times have you devoured what you’ve made or bought for lunch and then, almost immediately, decided that you’re still hungry?  So, you eat a whole bunch more – once again in a short period of time.  Then, about half an hour later, as your belly feels like it’s going to explode and you can’t unbutton any more buttons on your pants – you realize that you should have stopped before the seconds.  With slower eating (and maybe as some research suggerst, more chewing) and better pacing, your brain has a chance to synch its signals with the messages generated by putting food in your stomach.  You can even make yourself get up from the table and do something else – and promise yourself if you’re still hungry in 20 minutes you can have more.  If you’re in a restaurant, it’s the perfect time to excuse yourself and go to the rest room.  In most cases, after the 20 or so minutes, your belly and brain are both happy and you won’t want more to eat. Calories and uncomfortably expanding stomach saved!

The post Why Do You Still Eat More . . . Even When You’re Stuffed? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Where Would You Rather Eat?

Duh!!!  Obviously, most people would choose the beautiful settings in the Martha’s Vineyard or Tuscany pictures — or anywhere in the world that is just as serene and welcoming.

But . . . the real question is:  what is your goal?

The Setting And Your Surroundings Will Affect How Much You Eat

They will also affect how fast you eat and how long you take to eat.  According to Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating and director of Cornell’s Food and brand Lab, the atmosphere of a restaurant can get you to overeat in two ways:  if it’s really pleasant you want to stay longer — and therefore order and eat more, or if it is very brightly lit and perhaps loud and irritating you usually gulp and run, probably overeating before you realize that you’re full.

Red and Gold Decor Versus White Tablecloths

Fast food and high turnover restaurants are decorated for speed eating.  No pleasant pastels and soft music here. Instead you’ll find loud music, noise reflecting off of hard surfaces, and high arousal color schemes, often red and gold.  It takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to communicate to your brain that  you are full and this red and gold, noisy environment makes you gulp your food and reach for more way before 20 minutes have come and gone.

On the other hand, people tend to linger at restaurants with low lighting, soft music, flowers, and tablecloths.  The attentive waitstaff are there to offer you more and more food courses — and you are likely to jump at the offer(s). In this type of eating environment you end up ordering and eating more than you had planned.

SocialDieter Tip:

Restaurant decor is not an accident — it is designed with the intention of keep you at the table longer or getting you to eat and run.  How long does it take you to gobble down a Big Mac or chow mein?  The red and gold color schemes in many Chinese and fast food restaurants encourage you to chow down quickly.   The white tablecloths and soft music of the “fancy” restaurant you frequent make it oh so easy to linger longer — and order another glass of wine, dessert, coffee, and after dinner drink.  Know your setting:  pace yourself in the speed environment and avoid the temptation to keep ordering in the relaxed environment.

The post Do Your Surroundings Affect How Much You Eat? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Have you ever looked down to see crumbs all over your lap with a telltale wrapper clutched in your hand, and asked yourself, “Why did I eat that?”  Or, maybe after your second helping of spaghetti followed by ice cream, followed by a horrendously full stomach you’ve thought, “I’m such an idiot, why did I eat all of that?”

Why, Oh Why?

Why do we eat so much – often when we’re not even hungry? There are a bunch of reasons. They’re not difficult to understand – the hardest part is forcing yourself to take a good look at your habits and routines.

What Time Is It?

You might not realize it, but your body generally likes routines and your brain likes structure. One reason you’re hungry at noontime is because you’ve taught your body to expect breakfast, lunch and dinner around the same time every day. So you eat at the appointed hour – hungry or not.

See It, Eat It

Your body anticipates what and when food is coming. Doesn’t your mouth water thinking about Mom’s Christmas cookies or the hot cheesy pizza from your hometown hangout? How difficult is it to not eat once your mouth is watering and the thought of that food gets into your head?

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

You could chow down on a large meal but, as full as you might be, still make room for dessert.  Why? Probably because your desire for something sweet hasn’t been satisfied. Monotony often leads to searching for something different.  Ever been on a diet where you eat the same thing all of the time?  What generally happens when you can’t stand it any more?  Enough said.

Doesn’t That Smell Delicious?

Sight and smell can start a cascade of appetite signals.  The wafting scent of something delicious is one way your body knows that food is close by. This can trigger insulin secretion – which makes you think you’re hungry. If you think you’re hungry, you eat.

Booze

Beer, wine or liquor can impair your judgment, which often results in eating more.  Watching what you eat is harder if you’ve been drinking.

It’s Cold Outside – Or In The Restaurant

Ever walk into a restaurant and feel like you’re going to freeze? Restaurants often intentionally keep the thermostat set low because the colder the temperature, the more you tend to eat.  Heat can act as a satiety signal. Your metabolism tends to drop when it’s time to eat and eating warms you up.

Candy, Pasta, Cereal, Bread, Cookies; Refined Carbs and Sugars; A Whole Lot Of White Stuff

If you eat a meal that’s filled with refined carbohydrates like white pasta or white rice, in only a few hours your body may crave food again. Simple carbohydrate foods are digested quickly which causes blood sugar to spike and then drop. When your blood sugar crashes, you’re a lot more interested in food because your body is sending messages to take in food to help raise blood sugar levels again.

Habits and Routines

Doing the same thing each day, taking the same route home, going into a restaurant with a certain specialty, walking into Mom’s kitchen and heading straight for the cookie jar, are all habits or routines.  For instance, many people find that changing up the route home – avoiding passing right by their favorite bakery or ice cream parlor – will eliminate the craving for a food that had become part of an afternoon routine.

Holidays, Traditions, and Celebrations

Somehow special events scream, “All filters, guards, restraints, and rational thinking are dismissed for the event, day, or season.”  Think about the last wedding you went to, Thanksgiving dinner, or last year’s mega Christmas party.  Did you eat and drink more than you wanted to – or should have?  Why? For many of us a special occasion signals eat and drink without constraint.

Happy, Sad, Spurned, Rejected, And Any Emotion In Between

Yep, emotions. Emotional eating is a frequently a way people suppress or soothe their stress, anger, fear, boredom, sadness, loneliness, and a whole spectrum of negative emotions. These are things that can be caused by major life events or by the hassles of every day life. High calorie, sweet, and fatty foods, often in large quantities, tend to be the choice of emotional eaters.

SocialDieter Tip:

Most of us have times when we eat when we’re not hungry.  Sometimes it’s a one shot deal – or maybe it’s something that happens annually, like at Thanksgiving or Christmas.  We can learn to manage by balancing caloric intake and increasing activity levels.  But, if emotional eating triggers smothering stress or unhappiness with food – or if eating becomes a form of procrastination or relief from boredom, extra weight can begin to pile on.  It may be time to take stock of your habits and routines and to come up with a plan to shake things up a bit.

The post Why Do You Eat — Even When You’re Not Hungry? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

The weather forecast is all doom and gloom:  a foot and a half of snow, or torrential rain with 60 miles an hour wind gusts. Rush to the supermarket and, it seems, along with everyone else who lives in your town or city, buy bread and milk and then lots of other stuff.  You need to be prepared for the apocalypse — which in many cases doesn’t happen — and, unfortunately, sometimes does.

The weather comes and forces you to be housebound. Eventually you start going stir crazy, have to get out of the house. Maybe you have lost power.  So,  you venture out to eat.  Perhaps not during the height of the storm, but right afterwards.  The trick is to find someplace that is open and has power.  Wow — you find one.  Hmmm . . . what to order?  Gee, the fresh fish of the day sounds great.

Fresh fish? If there’s a foot and a half of snow, the snow plows are struggling to clear the main roads, the local waterway is iced over, trains and buses are running on limited schedules if at all, the airports are empty because there are no flights in or out, and even professional sports teams have cancelled their games, how is that “fresh” fish getting to your local restaurant?

A moment to analyze the menu is in order.  The chef may have a whole bunch of stuff languishing in the freezer in the back.  Okay, it may be fine, but it’s certainly not fresh.  And those leafy vegetables and berries — if the delivery trucks can’t drive through the streets, how did they get there?

If the chef ordered enough food before the storm and the restaurant’s business was way down because customers didn’t want to fight the weather, what happened to the unused food?  Restaurants are in business to make money.  Unsold food taking up space in the refrigerator and freezer does not bring in the bucks.  So, does the unused food appear in the days after the storm in a frittata or stew? Soup, cassoulet?   Of course, the frittata, stew, soup, or cassoulet  may still taste great, or maybe not.

Exercise some thought — and in some cases caution — when you make those menu choices during, or just after, blizzards, hurricanes, monsoons, and mudslides, and especially power outages!  Does grilled cheese and tomato soup sound good?

The post Blizzards, Hurricanes and Menu Choices appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Superbowl:  football, commercials, halftime show, and food!

It’s amazing how food has become associated with football — from tailgating to the food for the game — which of course culminates in the Superbowl party.  There are plenty of choices and anyone can eat well — and even have room for an indulgence — if you have a plan and don’t get sidetracked by the array of very caloric and usually very fatty foods.

This list is just to point out some examples of potential pitfalls and some saving graces. Stick with grilled meat, veggies, baked chips rather than fried if you must have them, plain bread rather than biscuits or cornbread. Go for salsa and skip the guacamole.  Turkey, baked ham, and grilled chicken are better choices than wings and fried chicken.  Try fruit for dessert.  Alcohol adds calories and dulls your mindful eating.  If you drink, intersperse each drink with water or club soda.  Take care of yourself and still have fun.  You’ll like yourself even more on Monday.

Enjoy the game. The SocialDieter would love to be watching the J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets.  There’s always next year!

Examples of food often found on Superbowl party tables:

Tostada with guacamole:  2 pieces (9.3 oz), 360 calories, 23g fat, 32g carbs, 12g protein

Salsa:  1 tablespoon 4 calories, .04g fat, 1g carbs, .2g protein

Nacho flavored tortilla chips, reduced fat:  1 oz, 126 calories, 4g fat, 20g carbs, 2g protein

Nacho flavored tortilla chips:  1oz, 141 calories, 7g fat, 18g carbs, 1g protein

Potato chips:  1oz, 152 calories, 10g fat, 15g carbs, 2g protein

Potato chips, reduced fat:  1 oz, 134 calories, 6g fat, 19g carbs, 2g protein

Raw baby carrots:  1 medium, 4 calories, 0 fat, .8g carbs, 0 protein

Pizza with cheese:  1 slice (1/8 of a 12” pie), 140 calories, 3g fat, 20g carbs, 8g protein

Pizza, pepperoni:  1 slice (1/8 12” pie), 181 calories, 7g fat, 20g carg=bs, 10g protein

Grilled chicken breast:  one 4.2 oz breast, 180 calories, 4g fate, 0 carbs, 35g protein

KFC Fiery hot Buffalo wing:  one 1oz wing, 80 calories, 5g fat, g carbs, 4g protein

KFC extra crispy drumstick:  one 2oz piece, 150 calories, 6g carbs, 11g protein

Chili (Wendy’s, with saltine crackers):  8 oz, 187 calories, 6g fat, 19g carbs, 14g protein

Wheat bread:  1 slice, .9 oz., 65 calories, 1g fat,, 12g carbs, 2g protein

Italian combo on ciabatta (Panera):  1 sandwich, 1lb. 7 oz, 1050 calories, 47g fat, 94g carbs, 61g protein

Subway 6g of fat or less turkey breast & ham on wheat sandwich:  8.3oz, 296 calories, 4g fat, 48g carbs, 19g protein

Chocolate chip cookie:  2-1/4” from refrigerated dough. 59 calories, 3g fat, 8g carbs, .6g protein

Chocolate ice cream, Cold Stone Creamery:   5oz (like it), 326 calories, 20g fat, 33g carbs, 5g protein

Apple:  medium, 95 calories, .4g fat, 25g carbs, .5g protein

The post Supergood and Superbad Superbowl Food appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.

Or, you’re driving your kid and a bunch of teammates home from a hockey game – or soccer game – or lacrosse game – that they played in the middle of nowhere.  The kids are hungry, and so are you. What’s available at rest stops and off the nearest exit? Fast food, fast food, and more fast food.

“Can eating fast food help you lose weight?” That’s the question asked in an article in The New York Times.  Some of the fast food chains have started offering reduced fat, low calorie, and/or lighter items on their menus.  We all know about Jared and Subway (Subway now has Fresh Fit subs as well as other low calorie options), but other restaurants have jumped on the moving train.

According to the article, Taco Bell has a Fresco menu which has seven items, including burritos and tacos, with less than 9 grams of fat; Starbucks has panninis that are 400 calories or less; Dunkin’ Donuts has egg white sandwiches; and Quiznos lists menu items that are 500 calories and under. Other name brand fast food places offer grilled chicken and other lower fat items.  And people are choosing to make these foods a routine part of their diets – some in an attempt to lose weight.

So, is this good or bad?  Can you make a habit of dieting on fast food?

Experts have mixed reactions ranging from good, bad, and no way!

Even though the calorie count of these foods may be low, in almost all cases the sodium levels are way too high. And, do you really know how nutritious they are?  What additives are there? Where did the food come from?  Most fast food outlets receive their portion controlled, seasoned, and probably frozen protein sources like chicken and burgers from a central processing facility with explicit instructions on how they are to be prepared.

In his book, The End of Overeating, David Kessler explains how our bodies get addicted to sugar, fat, and salt. Food vendors want to sell food and so they cater to these tastes by adding these ingredients to their food.  We may not know what’s been added, we only know that it tastes good and eventually we begin to crave the food. So, does this create a slippery slope:  eat fast food and consequently crave it?

Asked a slightly different way:  Is fast food always bad and to be avoided at all costs?

Probably not — although some may disagree. Will occasional fast food lunches or dinners spell disaster? Not likely.  If you do eat a fast food meal can you make some choices that are better calorically than others?  You bet.

Bottom line, the SocialDieter has been stuck in airports and train stations late at night and has driven her three sons to many games.  She knows that there are times when the choice is fast food or fast food.  It’s comforting in those instances to have choices that are grilled — maybe with some vegetables — rather than fatty, fried, and sauced with a side of fries.  Sure there may be a lot of sodium and  probably other additives, but an occasional meal isn’t going to break the bank.

Making fast food a regular part of your lifestyle may be asking for trouble. Building a diet around foods that are fresh, delicious, healthy, nutritious, additive free, and easily available is key – but note the words fresh, nutritious, additive free, and healthy.  Are these descriptive of a steady diet of fast food?

What do you think? Is the occasional fast food meal okay to have?  If you do eat fast food, what menu selections are the best?

The post Drive Thru Diets: Say What?Drive Thru Diets: Say What? appeared first on Eat Out Eat Well.