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Can you trick yourself into eating better? You can easily set up your kitchen (and some habits) that lead to eat better or less. But since you will know what’s going on, you won’t have to feel tricked. Quartz used this catchy title for a catchy story on my Cornell Food and Brand Lab colleague, Aner Tal. It’s about 3 minutes long and has a lot of eye-opening tips and insights. What’s unusual is how Aner describes why these work in a suave James Bond style and how Quartz cleverly illustrates them. Too cool for school.  Here’s some of what they mentioned:
1. Use lighter plates 2. Use smaller plates 3. Cut your food into pieces 4. Don’t watch TV when you eat 5. No scary movies 6. Don’t shop when you’re hungry 7. Deprivation always backfires Some of these might sound pretty basic, but it’s Aner's description of how they work and Quartz's funny illustrations that really make them pop. Aner flew out to visit me from Israel this past week, and we were talking about how people react after they hear about some of these discoveries. Some people hear about suggestions like these and say to themselves “That would never happen to me,” so they don’t try to do anything different, and nothing changes in their life. Other people say to themselves, “Yeah, that makes sense” but they never do it, so, again, nothing changes in their life. No one is going to hear about 7 discoveries and make 7 changes in their life. It’s too much. But you can make 1 or 2 of them. After they become habits, you can always come back to the table for another course.  Took my sax to a roadhouse bar last night. Had a chance to play a few tunes with the band. Afterward we were unwinding, and I was talking to the lead singer. We talked about music and about kids, and after a while he asked what I did. He then said, “Oh, yeah, I know that stuff. I got smaller plates because of that.” This is a kooky incident, but it brings up an important point: When you read about something related to your health or happiness, try it out for a week and see if it works for you. If you don't try it, it won't work. If you do try it, it may work. If it works for you, keep it. In the meantime, long live rock n' roll.  Summer is high school reunion season. A mystery of high school reunions is why some people never seem to age. They look the same way today as when you last saw them slow dancing to Stairway to Heaven. What is it they do that the the rest of us don't do? One thing . . . they don't gain weight. There's a lot of effort that people put into losing weight, but maybe it's easier to not gain it in the first place. One way do so is to ask perpetually slim people what they do. That's the goal behind our Healthy Weight Registry. Over 1000 people joined the registry and answered all sorts of questions (please join up if you wish). It will take us some time to crunch all of these data, but I'll start sharing some initial findings in a couple weeks . . . when I get back from my High School reunion. Other than "Choosing the right parents," what are some secrets you think people have for not aging or gaining weight?   What are the secret ingredients to a healthy kitchen? You probably don’t want to ask your doctor, because they don’t learn much about cooking or nutrition in Med School . . . yet. I just got back from New Orleans where Tulane’s Tim Harlan is trying to change that with a Culinary Medicine program that's teaching doctors across the country how to cook and how to advise their patients. Now it’s hard to get as excited about mushrooms, onions, tomatoes and carrots as these folks seem to be, but it’s easy to get behind healthier eating. Here’s an "Essentials" checklist to help you stock your kitchen and get back on track. But if you have to be on Bourbon Street anyway, feel free to leave the carrots at home and live it up. 
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