The study showed that obese people salivated longer than the non-obese in response to a new taste. Study author Dr. Dale Bond explained the implications of this result:

Saliva production tends to decline in most people once they've gotten used to the taste of a certain food and had enough of it. The process, called habituation, is associated with a feeling of fullness.

Although more research is needed, it seems that people struggling with obesity may not be receiving mental cues — the feeling of being used to a new taste, and of being full — as quickly as people who aren't obese. Thus they may keep eating longer. This result is in line with the view of Dr. David Kessler, who believes overeating is a mental problem, similar to addiction. He tells Salon's Katharine Mieszkowski:

In people who have a hard time controlling their eating, their brain circuits remain elevated and activated until all the food is gone. Then the next time you get cued, you do it again. Every time you engage in this cycle you strengthen the neural circuits. The anticipation gets strengthened. It's in part because of ambivalence. Do you ever have an internal dialogue? "Boy, that would taste great. No, I shouldn't have it. I really want that. And I shouldn't do it."

That sort of ambivalence increases the reward value of the food.

While overeating is affected by factors like the amount of fat, sugar, and salt in food, and the number of chews per bite (the fewer chews, the more we overindulge), Kessler says its true cause is what's going on in our heads. The reason diets don't work, according to him, is not that the body returns to a certain set point — it's that the brain does. He says,

Sure, I can take you out of your environment. I can give you meal replacements, or you can white-knuckle it, and for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, resist eating a lot of food, and you can lose weight, no question about that.

Now your diet's over. I put you back into your environment. You still have that old learning, that old circuitry. What's going to happen? You're going to get bombarded with the cues again and you're going to gain it back if you have not laid down new circuitry and new learning on top of that old circuitry.

But why is this circuitry a problem now, when it wasn't forty years ago (Kessler says that in the 1960s, people's weight remained stable throughout their adult lives)? Kessler's answer isn't totally satisfying:

We're eating in a disorganized and chaotic fashion. And we're being bombarded with the cues.

We make food into entertainment. We make it into a food carnival. Go into a modern American restaurant: the colors, the TVs, the monitors, the music. You do it with your friends. We've taken sugar and added all these multiple levels of stimuli. What do we end up with? Probably one of the great public health crises of our day.

Of course, we didn't have TVs in restaurants forty years ago. But food has been part of entertainment and celebration, and eating something people do with their friends, for a very long time. Looking for a "food carnival"? Try Carnival. So while Dr. Kessler's insights — and the findings about overeating and saliva — are interesting, its doubtful they're the whole story.

Why We Can't Eat Just One [Salon]
New Study Suggests Why Obese People Overeat [Diet Blog]

Says Forbes,

If executive women face challenges in the corporate world, these female culinary go-getters take even more heat. Restaurant kitchens, where every chef must train, are still male-dominated boot camps that often tolerate (or encourage) harassment and ridicule. Raising capital is tough in a world where financial networking is still very much a man's game. And dilemmas about family-work balance are especially frustrating, since a chef's schedule can be grueling and unpredictable.

Which goes some way towards explaining the low numbers of women in the restaurant field (besides pastry, with its more accomodating schedule), and the determination necessary for a female restauranteur to buck the trend - especially in this economy. Vets like Tracy Des Jardins, owner of a mini-empire in San Francisco, are rare, but for the past few years chef-owners like Gabrielle Hamilton, Michelle Bernstein and Anita Low have helped to define the recent trend in restaurants - small, local, perfectly achieved - which seems best poised to weather the recession. And new ventures by April Bloomfield and Sara Jenkins are among the most successful in a rough year for New York restaurants. Suggests Mary Sue Milliken, "But maybe from managing households and so forth, women manage better and know how to stretch resources."
How Women Are Heating Up The Restaurant World [Forbes]

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg says to Kessler (who is the former head of the FDA), "At times I couldn't decide whether you felt that the overweight were victims or undisciplined. Which is it?" Kessler replies:

The answer is probably neither. Nobody has explained to people what is going on with them, or given them the tools to cool stimuli. Yes, you are bombarded throughout the day. You respond. And that creates torment for people. But just because we are activated and stimulated doesn't mean that that there aren't things we can do. Yes, their brains are being hijacked. But once we understand what is going on, we can change.

In addition, Kessler says many people have a syndrome of "hyper-eating" — "the loss of control in the face of highly palatable foods, lack of feeling full." It's especially interesting in regards to kids:

Is it nurture or nature? You expose children who are eating fat, sugar and salt all day. They've never been hungry a day in their lives. Once you lay down that neuro-circuitry, it's there for life. The actual act of consumption isn't as strong as anticipation. It's the conditioning associated with a cue. Once you are cued and you're activated, it amplifies the reward value. It torments you. You want it more.

Businessweek notes that in Kessler's book, he documents a conversation he had with a food industry consultant:

Sugar, fat and salt make a food compelling, said the consultant. They make it indulgent. They make it high in hedonic value, which gives us pleasure. "Do you design food specifically to be highly hedonic," I asked. "Oh, absolutely," he replied without a moment's hesitation. "We try to bring as much of that into the equation as possible."

Businessweek's Cathy Arnst says we can't just blame the food industry: "As parents, we are all too guilty of stimulating our children's hedonic cravings early and often." She continues: "In the last few weeks my 10-year old daughter and I have eaten with several friends, and every time the children have been offered either mac n'cheese, hot dogs or pizza, usually accompanied by potato chips and soda and followed by ice cream. Adults too easily assume that kids won't eat anything else. My daughter actually likes healthy foods and doesn't like soda (when we got home from one dinner she asked why she couldn't have any grilled salmon). But when offered the option of fat-laden pasta or salt-infused hot dogs, guess which she chooses?"

Dr. Kessler swears that overeating is not a disease. But it is something that alters your brain chemistry: Everytime a kid eats food laden with sugar, fat and salt, it "it strengthens their neuro-circuitry to eat that food again." And we're living in a world in which we're constantly stimulated: "[Hyper-palatable foods are] available 24/7 and we've added the emotional gloss of advertising," Dr. Kessler says.

The big question is, should the government step in? Cathy Arnst says, "You would never give a child a cigarette. Or a drink, or a snort of cocaine. But everyday we American parents are giving our children something almost as addictive-meals laden with sugar, salt and fat." It's illegal to give a child a cigarette, alcohol or drugs. But even though there's a soda tax in the works in New York, do you think that the government should be regulating other junk food, especially if it is targeted to children? What if you couldn't buy McDonald's, Krispy Kremes or Hostess Cupcakes until you turned 18? (Kessler's view on that? "It's about how we as a country view the product. What was the real success of tobacco? We changed how we viewed the product. It was a critical perceptual shift. That's the key.")

The Science And Psychology Behind Overeating [WSJ]
How Mac N' Cheese Is Like A Cigarette [BusinessWeek]

Related: The End of Overeating: Taking Control Of The Insatiable American Appetite [Barnes & Noble]

Wyntergrace, whose dad is TV personality Montel Williams, writes:

I'm a big fan of yours. It seems that we have a few things in common. We all love dogs, live on the East Coast, have fantastic moms and maternal grand moms and both of our dads are quite famous. In our household we also eat healthy foods and I am working on a school project to get healthier foods in schools across the country. I would love for you to join my campaign and sign my petition and encourage other students and families to follow our own and respective families' lead.

Neal Barnard of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine has been working with Wyntergrace, lobbying for change. He says: "President Obama's daughters attend a private school that offers healthy vegetarian options that all students should have access to. But most schools only provide meatless meals if Congress pushes them to do so." Wyntergrace went vegetarian four years ago, but claims she never liked meat. According to US News & World Report, "Even at Thanksgiving, when her parents would urge her to eat traditional turkey, she'd balk, saying that turkeys shouldn't have to die to celebrate Thanksgiving."

You can read Wyntergrace's full letter here. The White House has no comment. But can you blame them? Malia is 11. Sasha is turning 8. Though their father has been elected to public office, the girls are technically private citizens. Should they really be expected to take a public position on any cause, even something as positive as healthy lunch?

One thing is for sure: If media-savvy Wyntergrace intended to get some attention for her campaign by using the girls' names, she succeeded.

Malia and Sasha Obama Urged To Join Veggie Campaign [US News & World Report]

Related: Healthy School Lunches [Official Site]
Related, sorta: How To Raise A Foodie [Strollerderby]

Sarah Haskins has mocked Jamie Lee Curtis and the dancing women in yogurt commercials before, but seriously: Do companies even want men to eat yogurt? Milk commercials make it seem like dairy is for everyone. You can certainly eat cheese and ice cream, no matter your gender. But yogurt? No Boys Allowed. And just to prove a point, a new frozen yogurt joint has apparently arrived in NYC. As seen in the picture at left, yogurt is so trendy, it is now Voguert.

There was a time when anything remotely "diet" was automatically for women: Lettuce, cottage cheese, soda. Times have only changed so much: Somehow, even though a dude will drink Diet Coke you just never see a man peeling off a lid of yogurt. And how much are you willing to bet zero guys are interested in Voguert?

Steak has been reclaimed. Hungry-Man dinners? Not exactly "just for men," seeing as how they are made up of fried chicken and meat smothered in mushroom gravy. (Name a woman who doesn't like gravy!) But yogurt remains a prisoner of the estrogen ghetto. Can you think of any other food that is so gender-specific?

FroYo Wars [Eater]
Another Terribly Named FroYo Place (Plus more from the Church's Food Court on 8th Ave.) [Midtown Lunch]

Masson came into the public eye in the early 1990s, when he waged a 10-year libel lawsuit against the writer Janet Malcolm, disputing quotations that were attributed to him. (He was also engaged to feminist scholar Catherine Mackinnon.) He is now most famous for his best selling books on animal emotions, When Elephants Weep and Dogs Never Lie About Love. Masson's work with animals led him to convert to veganism five years ago. Since then, he has been promoting the vegan lifestyle and animal rights pretty much nonstop.

I went to see Masson speak last weekend in Woodstock, NY. The lecture was intended to promote his new book, but it ended up being about a lot more than that. Masson is a great speaker, and he is particularly convincing when he discusses the mistreatment of animals in the American livestock industry. I am basically the furthest thing from vegan, but Masson allows himself, and others, a certain level of flexibility in the quest for ethical consumption. Eric Konigsburg for the New York Times writes:

For an author of polemics - and "The Face on Your Plate," though it's more measured and engaging than most, is definitely that - Mr. Masson has a deep inclination to forgive. He said that the best excuse for eating meat (or butter or eggs) is "because you like the taste."

What he gets more worked up about are "rationalizations," such as the argument that animals like cattle and chickens exist only because we eat them and their milk and eggs. "That's denial," he said. "We're the only animal who gets to choose what we eat, so we can choose to do what's humane and also much healthier."

Masson believes that there is no such thing as giving farm animals a "good life," and has nothing but scorn for anyone who tricks themselves into believing this "rationalization" (during the talk, Masson spent a good deal of time bashing Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, for his pro-meat stance). However, Masson occasionally contradicts himself, a habit that was particularly apparent during his lecture. He was good, but not good enough to convince me to give up bacon.

In the two and a half hour discussion, one of the only things Masson did not mention is the issue of veganism as it pertains to dress, something that is perhaps even more difficult to navigate than diet. Today, Dana Wood, senior fashion editor at W magazine, blogs about the difficulties facing vegans with a love for fashion:

But here's the real dilemma for someone like me, who clocks in at a fashion magazine every day and also happens to be utterly fashion-obsessed: Steering clear of meat is a walk in the park compared to finding a decent bag, boots or shoes that don't involve leather, suede or some other cuddly-critter byproduct. In fact, the more committed I become to this little project, the more I realize how challenging it is.

Like Masson, Wood allows herself a certain level of freedom in both her diet and her purchases. Working in the fashion industry, it is almost impossible to conform to perfect vegan ideals, but Wood says she is trying. Fortunately for the vegans among us, the last few years have seen a rise in vegan restaurants and vegan boutiques. In many ways, veganism can seem like a passing fad (kind of like "going green" or "recessionistas"), but for those committed like Masson and Wood, veganism is a lifestyle. And a growing one at that.

A Man With Opinions on Food With a Face [NY Times]
Trials of a Fashion-Loving Vegan [W Magazine Editor's Blog]

Almost five years ago, Katja Eichbaum, then 33, opened the restaurant Sehnsucht ("Longing") in Berlin with money loaned by her father. Eichbaum had struggled with anorexia and bulimia for over ten years; in a piece for NPR by reporter Emily Harris, she freely admits that running the restaurant is a therapeutic enterprise for her. And for the many staff members, including the chef, who are at various points in their own recoveries from eating disorders.

Eichbaum's idea is to normalize food, and to make the serving and consumption of food non-threatening to ED sufferers. "I have very normal food on the menu. Girls should take this kind of eating into their normal routine and stop depending on carrots or nibbling on the garnish at the edge of the plate," says Eichbaum. All of the menu items are given allegorical names (a rhubarb and vanilla dessert is called "Mixed Feelings," a rack of lamb is called "Ravenous") so that none of the customers has to dwell on the idea of food when ordering. But the dishes themselves are, apparently, simple and delicious. "We offer lamb curry, duck breast in orange sauce, very, very tasty things. They don't have to be afraid because the portions are normal. They don't overeat, and it's not too little, either." (Of course, you can order the Thieves Platter, €0, which is an empty plate and a set of cutlery, to allow anyone who doesn't want to order their own meal to poach from the dishes of their fellow diners.)

Sehnsucht is located across the street from a day center for people with eating disorders, and Eichbaum wants her restaurant to be a kind of low-key therapy for her patrons. "Girls will have no pressure to eat here," she says, "they can just drink tea. They'll have the chance to confide in someone here, I think...Maybe something like this would have helped me? I don't know, nothing like this existed." Partly to avoid stigma, and partly to attract other customers, nothing on the menu mentions the eating disorder focus.

A psychiatrist who treats patients with EDs quoted in the piece thinks the restaurant can be helpful, but only for people who've already come a long way towards recovery: "It also depends where you are with your problem....Some are really afraid of being observed, or stigmatized." Anyone who's seen an anorexic become an expert food stylist at the dinner table, pulverizing individual beans from the 1/3 serving of chili they've allotted themselves, or stripping the lobes off a broccoli stalk one by one, knows that not everyone with a problem might find Sehnsucht helpful; indeed, there's a danger that such an institution might actually enable certain sufferers. The last thing the world needs is another caloric-restriction anorexia-is-a-lifestyle pro-mia apologist; thankfully, it's absolutely not Sehnsucht's intention to normalize the disease, but to normalize the idea of being around food for its sufferers. Easing people who've had tortured relationships with food back into the pleasures of eating sounds like a great thing to me.

Painting, titled "Meat Painting II - In Memoriam René Magritte," by artist Adrian Henri, from here

Redux: German Eatery Caters To Anorexics [NPR]

Researchers from the Universite Laval in Quebec had 14 students relax while sitting, read and summarize a passage, and perform tests on a computer, then offered them as much food as they wanted. Even though the intellectual tasks only required 3 more calories than relaxing, the students ate more than 200 calories after summarizing the text and performing the tests. Researchers say the overeating may have been motivated by stress, or because the subjects were trying to restore glucose, which the brain uses for fuel. "Caloric overcompensation following intellectual work, combined with the fact that we are less physically active when doing intellectual tasks, could contribute to the obesity epidemic currently observed in industrialized countries," said lead researcher Jean-Philippe Chaput. [UPI]

While a lot of people are eating organic, Greene's stunt it noteworthy for its length and thoroughness, eating only organic food — defined as that produced without pesticides, antibiotics or hormones — both at home and in restaurants. "He chose three years as a goal because that was the amount of time it took to have a breeding animal certified organic by the Department of Agriculture. While food growers comply with organic regulations every day, Dr. Greene wondered whether a person could meet the same standards." Obviously, this was pricey — organic food can cost up to twice as much as what Whole Foods parlance terms "conventional," no laughing matter in these straitened times. (He found that cutting down on meat helped equalize the costs.) Then too, even in Dr. Greene's relatively health-conscious neck of the woods (where he was able to join a CSA and shop numerous farmers markets), organic chow could be hard to come by at, say, truck stops. Quoth the good doctor, “It was much more challenging than I thought it would be, and I thought it would be tough. There were definitely days where there was nothing I could find that was organic.” He'd call ahead to make sure restaurants could ensure that no non-organic morsel passed his lips; his family was into it.

Greene's rationale was that "his findings offer new insight into the challenges facing the organic food industry and those of us who want to patronize it." He also hoped it would improve his own health which, anecdotally it has (the scientific verdict is still out on whether organic foods are healthier, with arguments for both sides.)

Three years later, he says he has more energy and wakes up earlier. As a pediatrician regularly exposed to sick children, he was accustomed to several illnesses a year. Now, he says, he is rarely ill. His urine is a brighter yellow, a sign that he is ingesting more vitamins and nutrients.

While the experiment is a laudable one — and, in fairness, predates a lot of the food-related stunt journalism that's glutted the marketplace in recent years, and certainly the recent economic downturn — the rigid and stunt-like nature of it feels slightly arbitrary. It's certainly Dr. Greene's prerogative, and since he has the time and means to do so, more power to him: it's doubtless good to know the practical limitations of theory. It is always encouraging, too, to see a doctor practicing what he preaches. That said, the application is beyond the reach of most everyone, and as such, experiments such as these are feeling increasingly academic.

For Three Years, Every Bite Organic [New York Times]

Radice knows of what she speaks: in her house, she's the everyday cook, but her husband is the chef. "For he believes that only men can be truly great cooks. And though he is not a misogynist in real life, he certainly is in the kitchen." Of course, (beyond the question of whether selective chauvinism is a viable concept) in some ways, we should all have such troubles - there are certainly worse things than having a partner who handles the stress of dinner parties - and ironically, these ancient prejudices can have a liberating effect. Radice mentions Nigella Lawson's assertion that "Freedom from kitchen servitude is recent enough for women to flaunt their undomesticity – just as women of an older generation often refused to learn to type or learn shorthand."

However, to the extend this chauvinism plays out in the larger world, quite obviously it's problematic: women chefs tend to be qualified just that way - as "women chefs" - and even when this is treated as a positive, there's a certain tweeness to it, a sense that women bring an earth-mother serenity and sensitivity to the cooking process that's distinct from traditional chefs' militaristic mastery. The machismo of the professional kitchen is legendary, and generally women who survive there are regarded as unusually tough or preternaturally serene. Radice quotes Michelin-starred chef "Clare Smyth, "I could never say I'm tired, or I'm sick, or I've cut my finger, as the response would be, 'It's because you're a girl.'" Certainly, women in the kitchen are regarded as the exception - there's been just one female Top Chef winner, for instance, which was considered a Big Deal - and Gordon Ramsay (not known for his sensitivity in any realm), and who, it should be said, doesn't seem to have a problem putting women executive chefs in his kitchens) is quoted in the piece as saying, "Women can't cook to save their lives."

The woman as nurturer, men as performer stereotype, of course, is not all bad - certainly as cuisine has evolved from the purely technical to the more straightforward and connected (a movement spawned in large part by women, chiefly Alice Waters) the issue has become more nuanced. And it can't be denied that men and women, in civilian cooking, do often take different approaches - many men I've known in the kitchen are more engaged by complicated recipes and esoteric cooking challenges than the primal pleasure of feeding and nurturing people. Whether, however, this is societally-grounded is hard to say. (I should say that as cooking has ceased to be a need and has become a status-y hobby, I've also known plenty of women who only dabble in showy cooking, too.) The classic idea of a "chef "is masculine by reductive definition: a man's role in a man's world. I like to think the definition of the term is softening and changing, rather than that women are being forced into a circumscribed and outdated mold. Like ballet, cooking's a rigid and time-honored discipline. However, unlike dance it's forced to change with our habits and tastes. As such, hope that "cook" is not the pejorative chefs like Point would have made it, but rather something altogether new : still rooted in the realities of feeding rather than the show of dining - less regimented, less patriarchal, sure, than the purely masculine "chef," but ultimately not lacking in precision, skill or status. Although, apparently the author's husband has yet to get that memo.

Help - my husband thinks he's a superchef! [Independent]

[Image via Bravo]

We know from the AP (via the Times) that Obama dislikes beets — “I always avoid eating them.” And everyone, after all, has specific peeves. However, while Obama let it be known that he has “a weakness for chips and salsa and tends to put hot sauce on everything," and there are scores of obligatory campaign pix of him chowing down cross-country, according to Newsweek's special post-election issue, in reality he's "abstemious" to the point of asceticism:

Most candidates gain the Campaign 10 (or 15)...Obama, by contrast, lost weight. He regularly ate the same dinner of salmon, rice and broccoli. At Schoop's Hamburgers, a diner in Portage, Ind., he munched a single french fry and ordered four hamburgers—to go. At the Copper Dome Restaurant, a pancake house in St. Paul, Minn., he ordered pancakes—to go. (An AP reporter wondered: who gets pancakes for the road?) A waiter reeled off a long list of richly topped flapjacks, but Obama went for the plain buttermilk, saying, "I'm kind of traditionalist." Reporters joked that if he ate a single bite of burger or pancake once the doors of his dark-tinted SUV closed, they'd eat their BlackBerrys.

Michelle, by contrast, seems to enjoy food, preferring, according to an appearance on Paula Deen's Food Party (where they cooked fried shrimp), to exercise to stay in shape. She reminiscences about cooking gumbo for Barack, and as we all know from The View, she enjoys bacon. This is, of course, wildly speculative. It's merely prudent to watch what one eats on the campaign trail where opportunities for exercise are rare; and, for all we know, Michelle actually counts every calorie. More to the point, it has nothing to do with Obama's ability to govern — if anything, such self-restraint augurs well. So why does the information that he's so careful about what he eats bother me? Am I projecting? Uh, yes.

I love to cook and as an omnivore, it's been my misfortune to be cursed with a succession of picky romantic partners. My college boyfriend, while a food-lover by nature, was fanatically preoccupied with his weight, indulging in bouts of extreme abstemiousness and self-flagellation that took much of the pleasure from cooking and eating together. And my fiancé has a list of Don'ts so long — from imagined allergies (beef, fruit) to prejudices (peas, canned tuna, cucumbers, celery rye bread, cottage cheese, California dip) to expensive dogmas (he won't touch non-organic dairy or eggs or go anywhere that might use MSG) that meal-planning is a minefield. Perhaps worst of all, he refuses to eat the 5/$1 pork dumplings sold in Chinatown, one of the only things offsetting New York City's rents. I regard this as a major moral failing.

From what Newsweek says, I have a bad feeling President-Elect Obama would get those dumplings to go and then toss them, rather than slathering them with the obligatory mixture of soy sauce, hot sauce and sugar and living off of them for the next month. I can know that perhaps this is a good thing for the country, but still feel the first pin-prick of reality intruding on my fantasy, perhaps not even conscious, of the president as a compendium of arbitrary virtues — just as other people will have theirs. Besides, let she who is without sins cast the first stones. When, earlier today, I mentioned what a turnoff male pickiness is, my fiancé retorted, "you know what else is a turnoff? Garlic vaginas." Touché, sir. Touché.

Obama’s Red Scare [New York Times]
The Long Siege [Newsweek]
Promo Video Of Michelle Obama On Paula Deen's "Food Party" [YouTube]
The Obama's Are Bacon People!* Michelle Obama [YouTube]

While traditional gestures like serving ladies first, giving the guy the check and letting women have the banquette seat (courtly or paternalistic?) are far less prevalent than they were — to the confusion of servers everywhere — certain distinctions apparently still apply. Well, obviously: I mean, in an industry where success can hinge on the width of a napkin ring, no one's gonna blow off the divides in a customer base's priorities, expectations and tastes.“Women are looking for somewhere comfortable,” says Mario Batali. “Men are looking for somewhere to show off.”

Now that the old rules don't apply so much anymore — no smart restauranteur is going to assume a woman can't handle a wine list — and some of the gender gap has been closed by fads like the gender-neutral low-carb trend or equal-op annoying foodie-ism, the more fundamental divides between the eatin' sexes are apparently becoming manifest. Since we all love being told about ourselves by groups of strangers, here's the breakdown!

We sit in banquettes: Even though it's no longer the protocol — like any guys still know that rule, anyway — apparently women gravitate towards the seats that give the best view of the room/potential assassins.
We Need Warm Rooms: We apparently "tend to dress with more skin showing" so the thermostat's got to be up.
We Like Healthy Food: "Women more often ask if a menu has leaner, healthier options. Men more often ask if they can get a decent steak."
We Don't Like Crappy Places: "A woman is more likely to take offense if the restrooms are cramped, ugly and messy. "
We Do Like Awesome Places: "She’s also more likely to appreciate color and playfulness in a restaurant’s design, while there’s more risk that a man will be cool to that." Apparently this one mint-green restaurant with a seafood-heavy menu was attracting such a disproportionately female crowd that the owner redid it to make it more gender neutral. “There’s more meat now — a Niman Ranch pork chop, veal breast, a lamb T-bone,” and it's been repainted cream.
We Like Meat But We Like To Be Tricked Into It: "Stephen Starr, who owns Buddakan and Morimoto, said that women more often hesitate if the name or look of a dish is too blunt a reminder that they’re biting into an animal. 'If it’s something that says chorizo with some sort of egg, they’ll eat it,” Mr. Starr said. “If it’s a suckling pig, they’re not going near it.'" (Not true. Suckling pig delicious.)
We Don't Actually Tip Less, But Parties Of Women Still Suck for Waiters: Although the pernicious fiction that women are bad tippers is apparently a myth, we do tend to order less and hold tables hostage four hours so a server can't turn it over.
We're Less Insecure: "A man is more likely to care about being greeted rapturously and treated like an insider," whereas we apparently just want to eat fish and "eggs" in stifling hot mint green rooms, for hours, while seated in a banquette.

Old Gender Roles With Your Dinner? [New York Times]

But the article notes that we're living in a world where triggers for thinking about death are everywhere — from a news report on Iraq, Burma or China to a car accident you see on the way to work — is it any wonder there's an obesity epidemic in this nation? The question is, what can we do about it? Is there a way to escape our escapism? Distract ourselves from our distraction? Why does soothing your mental heath mean hurting your physical health? Why, mother nature, why? And if you're thinking about death all the time and eating cookies all the time, aren't you just incresing your chances of dropping dead? Sigh. The next time anyone says anything about you snacking, tell 'em you're trying to deal with your crippling thoughts of mortality. And have another cookie.

Thoughts Of Death Make Us Eat More Cookies [New Scientist]

Related: Little Britain: Meeting The Parents [YouTube]