Woohoo!! I'm doing good according to that article!

My kitchen is painted green with deep cherry cabinets, the only visible food is fruit, I have no seating in my kitchen, my pantry is not right next to my cooking zone, I store all the less healthy things behind the door in the pantry so you have to step inside and close the door to access them, my microwave is not in my kitchen proper, etc.

So....when is my waistline going to shrink from all the pounds I put on during the remodel? ;)

That is a really interesting article. I know that after our reno I baked more cookies etc, instead of buying them which is healthier (if you're going to eat that stuff which we do sometimes). And if I haven't baked for awhile, I still don't buy cookies, etc so we eat fruit for snack

That was interesting, Crl. Thanks for posting it.

A lot of these correlations have nothing to do with causations. It's a fun read, but a lot of it is hooey. People who have the cereal in sight are people who eat a lot of cereal. They might eat less cereal if they chose fruit from the bowl first instead of the cereal, but cereal could be hanging from a hat in front of my face and I won't eat it, whereas cereal eaters won't be deterred by a cabinet door.

People who donâÂÂt have a microwave or keep their microwave in a different room tend to weigh less,â he says. âÂÂThey cook more from scratch and eat fewer pre-prepared foods" So you can move your microwave to another room. Stuff and nonsense! The people who make their food from scratch and don't eat pre-prepared foods don't use a microwave for much and therefore don't need one handy, not the other way around. Perhaps making the microwave a little more inconvenient will also encourage the convenience of fruit, but it's not going to make people give up their Hot Pockets. It might be that without a microwave people will make a salad for a quick meal rather than zapping a richer soup. But I wouldn't count on it. The statistic is probably there because more people zap fattening foods than they do good home cooking. You could skip the redesign and just eliminate zap to eat foods.

The TV thing is spurious, too. If you're a couch potato by nature, and won't walk to the kitchen for the chips, but will reach into the pantry for them, then, yes, but at that point, bless you, you have more problems than tweaking your kitchen design can help. Having a TV in the kitchen can encourage healthy eating amonst those who are willing. I won't make kale chips unless I can prep them in front of the TV. Getting a bit of ruffle on each chip is what makes them good, but it's deadly tedious. I think the comfy chair anywhere might be the real issue. Too comfy, especially "zero gravity" and it's too easy to stay in one position too long, which is never good.

Do people with clutter really eat more because they have clutter? Or is clutter just a symptom that they don't have enough time to allocate to home and hearthkeeping, and eat more grab and go than home cooked? Symptoms aren't causes.

One of the first things you learn about science is that correlation does not imply causation. I'm not saying that this guy's statistics don't show that there's something potentially interesting happening. The conclusions, however, are ridiculous.

I read his book "Mindless Eating" and it was fascinating!

Pllog, Brian Wansink the author of the BOOK never says any of this causes you to eat more, Mitchell Parker the writer of this article does.

When you read the actual book you will read many, many tendencies that many/most of us can fall to.

I lived without a microwave for about 2 weeks. THe changes in my habits were:
- I drank less coffee because I couldn't zap the cold coffee from my Bodum (good for health)
- I ate *fewer* home cooked meals because I couldn't zap the leftovers in the microwave (bad for health)

My guess is that the lack of a microwave is caused by the homeowner being a bit of a luddite. And luddites likely have better eating habits to begin with.

I just read that article this morning and other than having a comfy chair and TV in the kitchen (or open kitchen/FR plan), I think it's off-base. Yes, having the TV, comfy seating, and snacks nearby (without having to take eyes off the screen) does encourage mindless eating. Even if you don't buy snack food, I think some studies in the past have shown that eating dinner in front of the TV encourages you to eat more without realizing it. Something conversation doesn't?

But I use my MW to reheat leftovers, not Hot Pockets, so I think it encourages healthier eating. As far as cereal, well, if you're eating whole grain cereals and oatmeal, I don't see that having them out makes you eat more - now maybe if you buy sugary chocolate-flavored cereals and the boxes or clear containers are out on the counter, the kids will snack on them.

As far as clutter, I wish I could get rid of DD's school projects and hair ribbons and binders etc. that she leaves on the counter next to the fruit bowl (and coffeepot). I also have a bowl stuffed with my old digital camera and odds and ends I should empty out. I did clear a lot of her stuff away when I started filling the breakfast bar with bowls of ripe tomatoes that need to be processed - I did 7 quarts of tomatoes the other day but picked 23 gallons more of tomatoes yesterday (in the garage, but sorted through what I had out there and brought more in). Maybe in another month my counters won't be cluttered with tomatoes, canning jars and rings, and I won't have a 12 qt stockpot and a pressure canner permanently installed on my stove. Not to mention the 2 cases of canning jars (1 washed and ready for the next batch, 1 partially filled with full jars waiting to be carried to the basement) sitting in the DR!

Oh, and the counter by the sink is always filled with colanders and DS's water bottles and aluminum cookware and plastic bowls that need to be handwashed, or the dish drainer is full of them drying. I run the DW twice a day on days that I'm canning and I still have stuff piling up in the dishpan and the counter.

I think it's the white rice and pasta (have to have something to eat with all these tomatoes!) making me fat, not the design of my kitchen!

Sometimes I think it's people with uncluttered kitchens who don't cook, they eat out or MW meals, maybe they're more overweight than people who do cook?

Time to go make the salsa...(and we don't have any chips in the house, DH is going to have to buy some if he wants them, they are too tempting for me. I use the salsa as a chili starter along with whole canned tomatoes)

Aloha, many thanks for recommending the book. I'm glad it was just the article writer who was pushing the hooey.

I agree with Hydrangea and Ajsmama about the particulars. Loved the "luddite" line. :)

I'm tempted to read the book to see what Wansink really meant to say. Once I stop tripping over the backlog of reading that I have cluttering my kitchen, living room and bedroom, maybe?

ajsmama - try making some ratatouille will all those tomatoes. I'll bet you have some zucchini too. Throw it in! I just made a double batch yesterday (went to the Farmers' Market) and froze most of it in 2-person batches. Yummy. Warning: it takes forever to cut all those veggies up, but it's worth it. Bonus: you can eat your fill and more of ratatouille and not worry about weight gain.

Design what you want, if there's food around I'll find a way to eat it. Don't read labels or count things either.

Actually, the 7 quarts I canned the other day were tomato with zucchini so we can have ratatouille (or at least a veggie-tomato sauce) during the winter. I've still got tomato with yellow squash from last fall (after the zukes died but I still had yellow - opposite this year).

Bumping to add a slightly off topic link to a slate article on designing lunchroom trays to encourage healthy heating.

Here is a link that might be useful: Slate article on lunchroom trays

Ugh. Interesting notion, but I think giving people attractive good food on attractive dishes, rather than plops of glop in a divided tray, would make for healthier eating.

And red??? What were they thinking? Most of the good for you stuff will clash. I wouldn't eat kale off a red plate! That old warm beige of traditional school crockery made everything look its best. The gold is probably fine. Red is a very appealing color to kids in general, and fine for a flat tray that's a background to white dishes, but I've had to serve meals on red dishes (not my choice), and they're definitely off putting. Sometimes reinventing the wheel gives thumpy thumphy ovals with two foci rather than round and round wheels with a single focus.

I mean, there are plenty of features that sound good, like highlighting the veggie sections, making the high calorie sections look bigger than they are, and especially making the trays fit double in the dishwasher, but fooling kids doesn't really work in the long run. If the fruit is mealy and the veggies are mushy, no matter the size, location and color of the compartments, they're going to be filling those up with cookie crumbs, extra potatoes, etc. The trays may help sell them on good stuff they aren't used to eating, but they're not going to sell them on bad food!

You mean more like school lunches in Sweden?

Here is a link that might be useful: school lunch in Sweden