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Eating Strategies
Do you eat the best thing first or save the best for last? Most people fall into one of these two categories and according to Brian Wansink's Mindless Eating there is a simple economic explanation. The people who eat the best thing first tend to have grown up as younger children from large families. The people who save the best for last are more often first borns. Need I say more?
Mindless Eating, by the way, masquerades as a diet book but it's really about research design! Highly recommended.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on June 28, 2007 at 07:12 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
The people who save the best for last are more often first borns. Need I say more?
My siblings and I did lots of things to each other, but snatching food off each other's plates wasn't one of them. We saved the worst stuff for last in the hopes that we'd be able to escape the table without having to eat it at all (which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't).
Posted by: Slocum at Jun 28, 2007 7:57:50 AM
It is an excellent book. I'm about the last guy who would buy a "diet book", but I did buy Mindless Eating because I wanted to read about the experiments. It was fascinating and enjoyable in that regard, but since then, I've lost more than 20 pounds, which I attribute to the advice in the book.
Before I read the book, I weighed about 170 pounds, which was borderline overweight for my height. I'm now at about 148 pounds, which is around the middle of the "normal" weight range for my height. I have not had to give up anything that really matters to me. I still drink wine frequently and eat out without worrying about what's in the food.
The main benefits have come from:
1) Realizing how much effect, over the long run, a small change in caloric intake can have. I don't have the book here with me to look it up, but it doesn't take many M&M's per day to put on 5 or 10 pounds per year. This gradual weight gain was what happened to me, and reading this made me realize that a small decrease in my caloric intake--too small to really notice--could result in a similar gradual decrease in my weight. Patience is the key.
2) Not eating when I'm not hungry. I used to hit the snack machine in the afternoon, or munch on chips in the evening, pretty much as recreation--something to do. Now, I just ask myself if I'm really, physiologically hungry. Now that I'm in this habit, eating when I'm not hungry is usually kind of repulsive.
3) Giving my body time to realize it's full. It takes 20-30 minutes to "feel full" after eating. This is a good reason to delay getting dessert--wait and see if you still have room for it later.
None of these are earth-shattering, but they give me motivation (point 1) and simple guidelines (points 2 and 3) that have led to weight loss with little sacrifice.
Posted by: mph at Jun 28, 2007 8:00:24 AM
Well, I am the tail end of 6, and I save the best for last. My reason? The same as everthing in life, I like to get through the bad stuff so I can enjoy the good. Even with a burger, I save the best bite for last. Who would want to walk around with a bad taste in their mouth?
Posted by: kristin at Jun 28, 2007 8:03:36 AM
kristin, why do you eat the bit that tastes bad?
Posted by: dearieme at Jun 28, 2007 8:58:36 AM
I'm a youngest of four. I don't know if I go for the good stuff first actually, but my son (firstborn) definitively does. Then again, he has no competition, unless you count me and his mother.
Posted by: Harald Korneliussen at Jun 28, 2007 8:58:59 AM
At a Chinese banquet, the best dish usually disappears first, especially when the guests are single children of their families.
Posted by: Yan Li at Jun 28, 2007 9:25:19 AM
I'm a firstborn, but I got in the habit of eating the best thing first for a much simpler reason. My parents told me no dessert until I finished my vegetables. So I'd eat whatever main course was being served first. When told that I had to eat my vegetables if I wanted dessert, I responded, "That's fine, I'm full." Then I could grab dessert a couple hours later when my parents were doing something else.
Posted by: David at Jun 28, 2007 9:30:34 AM
I believe if you were to look at different situations, you may see different results.
I'd go as far as to say everybody will go for their favorite dish first in a social setting with a limited amount of x dish to feed everybody. "He who eats the fastest eats the mostest." Does it make a suggestion as to what a third, fourth, etc born does when they are alone?
In a home setting or restaurant where the food is pre-portioned or ordered, the first born may save the best for last more often than not.
Posted by: tyler at Jun 28, 2007 10:47:22 AM
In reading Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste, I was struck by how eating in his day was the inverse of today. You go to a top restaurant nowadays, and you start out with ephemeral "amuse-bouches", working up gradually through salads, soups, fish, etc. up to the main (usually meat) course. The idea, I suppose, is to super-stimulate the palate while keeping you hungry until the grand finale.
In his day, they started with the big, filling courses, then extended the meal through increasingly tiny and delicate foods that presumably kept your interest even though you weren't actually hungry anymore.
In a formal Chinese banquet, you always eat the good stuff first, and never eat plain rice until the very end - at which point you're so stuffed it's almost ritualistic.
Posted by: Tony at Jun 28, 2007 1:12:30 PM
In reading Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste, I was struck by how eating in his day was the inverse of today. You go to a top restaurant nowadays, and you start out with ephemeral "amuse-bouches", working up gradually through salads, soups, fish, etc. up to the main (usually meat) course. The idea, I suppose, is to super-stimulate the palate while keeping you hungry until the grand finale.
In his day, they started with the big, filling courses, then extended the meal through increasingly tiny and delicate foods that presumably kept your interest even though you weren't actually hungry anymore.
In a formal Chinese banquet, you always eat the good stuff first, and never eat plain rice until the very end - at which point you're so stuffed it's almost ritualistic.
Posted by: Tony at Jun 28, 2007 1:14:33 PM
I'm a first born, and until recently a die-hard best-for-laster. I finally figured out the implications of diminishing returns, and now wait till the hunger's really coming on before eating, always going for the best stuff first. It is divine.
Posted by: Adam at Jun 28, 2007 1:37:44 PM
I'm an only child, and frequently I can't just can't remember which way I usually do it. "I prefer this hamburger to these french fries, so which one do I eat first? Uhh. Dunno. Let's randomly pick the other."
Posted by: Kaj Sotala at Jun 28, 2007 2:43:59 PM
Dang, perusing the list of recent posts... and I thought it said "Exit Strategies"... perhaps another day. Meanwhile, I'll follow mph's summary advice and see what happens to my waistline.
Posted by: Dave Meleney at Jun 28, 2007 6:43:21 PM
Holy mother of dogs! Am I the only sampler left? I was taught that it was downright weird to eat one thing then the other unless the things are presented in courses.
Posted by: Brad Hutchings at Jun 28, 2007 7:07:00 PM
My eating patterns are not especially consistent. While I'm generally a sampler, even disregarding food presented in courses in all but formal settings (or where they actually take things away at the end of a course), I'll eat in a linear fashion from time to time. Linear eating may be driven by convenience, e.g. the fries are on top of the hamburger in the bag, or it may be an attempt to sample each type of new food apart from others.
And whether sampling or eating one item at a time, I don't consistently save the best for last or eat it first. I'm just as likely to eat it in the middle. Oftentimes, I won't know what's best until after I'm done.
To put it simply I eat things. I've eaten everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. Order doesn't matter.
Posted by: Apep at Jun 28, 2007 11:11:45 PM
What about only children? I'm one and I go for best-for-last. Is this because I'm a competition-less carnivore?
Posted by: alec at Jun 28, 2007 11:30:24 PM
