Mindless Eating

Food psychologist Brian Wansink, who holds a Stanford Ph.D. and runs the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University, studies the unnoticed cues that shape how much people eat and why. He reports on experiments such as the bottomless soup bowl, which secretly refilled itself, and asks whether brand names improve taste or plate size sways appetite, and how packaging, music or room color affect how much people eat. He also looks at the hidden persuaders that supermarkets and restaurants rely on, explains why most diets fail, and proposes using a mindless margin to lose ten to twenty pounds in a year instead of gaining it. The advice covers settings from the dinner table to the office and vending machine.

Sumo founder Noah Kagan included it in his list of 18 books that changed his life.