Posted on 10/18/2005 2:49:48 PM PDT by Mike Bates
EATING steak is a symbol of pent up anger, gorging on chips means you are stressed and filling up on cakes is a sure-fire sign that you are sexually frustrated. When it comes to betraying mood, it seems, you are what you eat.
A study has found that a person's choice of food is dictated by their state of mind and diners apparently seek out dishes to regulate how they feel.
Angry people turn to chewy foods while the sexually frustrated crave carbohydrate-rich biscuits and cakes.
Those under stress reach for salty snacks while people going through crises such as divorce tend to revert to the foods of childhood such as ice cream.
Jealous people often stack their plates indiscriminately - a consequence of having had to compete with siblings at the dinner table in childhood, say researchers.
The findings are the result of a US study of the eating habits of 500 people who kept diaries about their choices of meals.
Carried out as part of a study of addiction, it is thought to be the first to link individual foods with particular states of mind.
Cynthia Power, the Illinois-based psychotherapist behind the survey, said: "Food can be used to change feelings the person doesn't want to have.
"Only hard, crunchy mastication will suffice when someone needs to take out their anger.
"Alternatively, loneliness is artificially assuaged with bulky, fill-up-the stomach foods."
When frustrated, I beat the tar out of inanimate objects.
Catharsis is real whereas this study is a joke.
One of my employees has a doughnut fetish. I'd rather not consider what that implies.
Regards, Ivan
Last time I checked, we still spoke commonly used American English here in the Land of Lincoln. But just barely.
I'm a vegetarian. It does have health benefits, but it's not for everyone.
Oh and I don't feel guilty about anything in particular.
Regards, Ivan
You mean, like Democrats?
It implies around 50 pounds over what he/she should weigh I'd guess. Or perhaps he/she always wanted to be a cop.
Health food aficianado.
He is overweight but not by that much. He always asks if the doughnuts are "squishy".
That's apparently a good thing if they are.
Regards, Ivan
Hang out in either Hollywood or bad neighborhoods. They're everywhere.
Dang right. I bet granola and tofu means inner peace, kindness, tolerance, and all that other kumbayah road apples.
Road apples - the number one product from granola and tofu eating commie hippies.
MA. :)
Ding, ding, ding.
Ice cream is reverting to childhood foods? Most foods were started in childhood. Makes absolutely no sense. This whole study is a bunch of cr**. Wonder who got the bucks for this "gravy" train.
Very likely a Federal grant was involved. They often are. The private sector is reluctant to fund jive.
To paraphrase Freud, sometimes a steak is just a steak.
About the speaker: Cynthia Power is co-founder and co-owner of Life Enrichment Services, Inc.; a private practice in Wheaton, Illinois. She has worked with a variety of couples, families, and individuals in the greater Chicago area for 30 years. Cynthia is a trainer and consultant to a number of regional programs and agencies for the last 20 years, and has actively been presenting nationally and in Canada.
Agencies? Wonder which ones.
you may not feel guilty, but then your are......... madIvan.
;)
OK, I'll take that one:
Swedish meat balls - Lust. Obviously 'Swedish' conjures to the mind a scantly clad blond, blue eyed, busty beauty.
spinach souffle - Popeye/strength to pursue your Swedish dreams.
stewed apples - Damn!! That spinach souffle never works!!
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