Review: Mindless Eating, by Brian Wansink

The other day, I was killing time at the bookstore because....I don't remember why. Because that's what I do when I have time to myself, I guess. Anyway, on my way from datebooks to fiction, I passed through the diet book section and Mindless Eating caught my attention*. After reading a little bit in the store, I was intrigued enough to buy it.

I love backstories, trivia, the "why" behind history and ordinary things. One of my favorite books of all time is A Short History of Nearly Everything, not because I care all that much about the origins of life on this planet, but because it had all these little asides about the personalities of the scientists making the discoveries, and details about how they stumbled upon them. I also loved Blink and The Tipping Point, about how intuition and fads work. 1776 is also currently on my bookshelf, waiting for me to pick it up again between trashy mystery novels.

So it should come as no surprise that I enjoyed Mindless Eating--it's the same sort of book, really. It's full of experiment stories, practical suggestions, etc., without the "sales pitch" feel of a typical diet book. Though I had already heard of many of the studies he talks about and there were no earth-shattering new revelations, the details were interesting, and the tips about "re-engineering your environment" to switch from mindless overeating to mindless weight loss are very practical. Some of them overlap other books I've read (smaller plates/single serving containers, using "signal clothes" to measure progress instead of the scale), but some were new to me--making a checklist of 3 small changes, the "half-plate rule."

So, while it's not anything we haven't heard before, it is an entertaining read filled with good, practical information and interesting lab anecdotes. It's also short--I finished it in just two days. Two thumbs up!

*And holy shit--I totally should have waited until I got home and bought it on amazon instead. I could have saved $10!

I made the same mistake once - bought a book at the mall and then came home and found it for WAY LESS on Amazon.com.

Do what I did. Order the book on Amazon. When it arrives, take it back to the store with the receipt from the book you bought already.