The availability of food is directly correlated with the amount of food we consume. This probably isn’t a surprise. Evolutionally speaking, with food being scarce in our environment of evolutionary adaptiveness, it was a survival advantage to eat when we could.
We can use this evolutionary knowledge to control our contemporary caloric intake.
Two main bodies of research support this notion, one which examines the visibility of food, the other which examines accessibility to food.
The first explores the volume of food consumed when the food stored in an opaque container, versus a clear container. The second examines food consumption when food is readily available and within reach, versus the food being several metres away.
Again, no surprises with the results. People eat less food when it’s not visible and when it’s not readily available.
The lesson here is that food should be kept out of sight, and should not be readily available.
Nothing groundbreaking really, but simple, easy to carry out initiatives to swing your caloric expenditure away from fat storage.
Sourced from: ’59 Seconds’, Professor Richard Wiseman. Pan Publishing, 2010.
