Blog Posts by Brian Wansink, PhD, PREVENTION

Eating with chopsticks can be a hassle. People eat slower and eat less per bite. This is why dieters are often told to eat with chopsticks. (See more ways to stick to your diet here.) So who do you suppose is more likely to use a fork when eating in a Chinese restaurant - a normal weight person or an obese person?

We decided to find out. We observed 120 normal weight diners and 120 obese diners at Chinese buffets in California, Minnesota, and New York, and we noted whether they were eating with chopsticks or silverware. (Here, secrets to stay skinny at a buffet.)

Out of the 37 people eating with chopsticks, 32 were normal weight - five were obese. While only 27% of the normal weight diners used chopsticks, it was far more than the 4% of the obese diners.

Take the Chinese Buffet Chopstick test. Next time you find yourself at a Chinese restaurant, check out who is eating with the chopsticks and who has a fork in their hand.

Would you switch to chopsticks to lose weight?

Cook and

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What's the hardest part about weight loss? Visual temptations. I just had a friend over last night who has a show on the Food Network. The conversation turned to willpower-shattering temptations, and one person said their only dietary weakness was seeing chocolate on their kitchen counter.

It reminded me of the Song of the Siren Slurpee.

Twenty years ago, a roommate of mine who had a weakness for Slurpees found himself stopping at a specific 7-11 convenience store each afternoon. He just could not help himself. Every time he slowed down at the stoplight, his said his car became possessed and turned into the 7-11 parking lot. (Slurp these healthy smoothies instead!)

As time passed and his clothes started becoming tight, he decided if he could not keep his car from driving into 7-11, he would take a different route home, zig-zagging around the 7-11. If the siren song of 7-11 or of Dunkin Donuts is too difficult to resist, there are two choices: Lash yourself to the

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I'm a big believer in leftovers. You eat less, and you waste less. Now, with a new product, leftovers are an even healthier lunch solution.

Until last week, I never gave much thought as to what you put leftovers in. I either wrapped them up or put them in a plastic bowl.

Recently I attended the International Housewares Show in Chicago. I ran across one booth named "Snapware" that sold something that looked like glass tupperware. The woman there, Sophia Dilberakis, said that resealable glass containers (Glass-lock) provided a "leftovers solution" to people who want to reheat them without worrying about it releasing chemicals in the microwave. (Discover 20 make-ahead meals you can freeze, thaw, and throw in the microwave!)

When they arrived at my Cornell Lab, I pretty much saw them as nice-looking but heavy versions of plastic dishes. Was I wrong. Two of my operations people asked if they could borrow them, and they have brought leftovers to lunch in them the past couple days... to

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A few years back, I did a study of 1004 cooks to see if certain types of personalities are likely to be better cooks than others. What we found was that most cooks fall into one of five different Cooking Personality Profiles. The profile of these Nutritional Gatekeepers not only influences how they cook, but it influences how they - gulp - feed their family. (See $2 slow cooker recipes here!)

I wrote about this Mindless Eating, and a few weeks ago the New York Times writer Tara Pope-Parker and I developed an easy 5-question quiz that can help you determine what type of cook you are. Take the quiz to see which personality fits you!


1) My favorite things to cook are:
a) Home-baked goodies.
b) Casseroles.
c) Foods with fresh ingredients and herbs.
d) Anything that lets me fire up the grill.
e) Ethnic foods and wok dishes.

2) Other people describe me as:
a) Really friendly.
b) Diligent and methodical.
c) Health conscious.
d)

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There is a limit to how much work we will go through for something we love as much as candy and ice cream - and it is not very much. One cafeteria tested this by leaving the lid of an ice cream cooler closed on some days and open on other days.

The ice cream cooler was in the exact same location, and people could always see the ice cream. All that varied was whether they had to go through the effort of opening the lid in order to get it. Even that was too much work for many people. If the lid was closed, only 14% of the diners decided it was worth the modest effort to open it. If the lid was open, 30% decided it was ice cream time. (See our heart-healthy, rich recipe for chocolate pudding!)

If the effort of opening a lid prevents many people from eating ice cream, why don't companies make lidless ice-cream freezers? They have, and they are popular in many crowded tourist areas in Europe. The ice cream-loving Europeans have developed freezers that cool the ice cream bars from the

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Lots of people like to point at the increasing portion-size trend in restaurants and fast food as being the source of their extra pounds.

But is this any different than what we've done at home? I thought it would be interesting to see how the calorie levels and serving sizes of our home-cooked recipes have changed with time -- say, over the past 75 years.

We took the classic book, the Joy of Cooking, and we analyzed the calories and serving size of the recipes that were common to all 8 editions, (1937-2006). All but one of the recipes we had analyzed had increased in calories per serving. The average increased by 63%. About 2/3 of this was due to more caloric ingredients (more fat, sugar, sauces, meat, nuts, and so on), and 1/3 was due to larger servings (6 vs. 8 slices to a pie).

Home-cooked meals are a great way to get the family together and to save money. They don't always save us calories. Just because its home-cooked doesn't mean it's 5 times better than the

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What day of the week did you start your most recent diet? Chances are it was a Monday.

46% of people in our recent study said their last attempt to launch a weight-loss plan started on a Monday morning.

Now, do you remember when you called it quits on that dieting attempt?

For 31% of people, the miserable experience is over by Tuesday evening.

Like most New Year's resolutions, Monday morning diets are doomed despite our very best intentions. That's because both are based on deprivation.

No matter what you're denying yourself - carbohydrates, fat, red meat, snacks, pizza, breakfast, chocolate - you are setting yourself up for failure. It doesn't make much difference whether we are deprived of affection, vacation, television or our favorite foods. Being deprived of what we enjoy most is no way to live. It puts our nerves and our willpower on a hair trigger.

For some people, such as those who win big on the TV show, "The Biggest Loser," the answer

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I recently had the very cool experience of meeting the Nicaraguan Ambassador at his Embassy in Washington D.C. for a private dinner.

It was incredible fun, and it answered a question that I've often had. With all the wining and gourmet dining that these high rollers do -- day after night, night after day -- how do so many of them stay so trim?

At a discrete moment during dessert, I sneaked in a quick photo that might explain part of how these people can eat incredibly well and not gain weight.

The actual dessert tray!

As you can see from the dessert tray (that's my photo to the right!), there are 6-8 little tastes of foods -- slivers of cheese, chocolate, raisins, and so on. Although incredibly satisfying, there were fewer calories here than in most chocolate chip cookies you and I typically eat. (See a slideshow of 20 healthy holiday cookies that taste amazing.)

The two-edged sword is variety. We find a wide variety of food more satisfying, but it also leads us to overeat. As I

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