SURFNETKIDS GROWN-UP NONFICTION BOOK CLUB Got shopping? Get discounts! Visit Surfnetkids: Coupons, Deals and Bargains for hundreds of discounts from dozens of online stores. week's book: MINDLESS EATING by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. *New to the book club? Just click on the Missing Read link below for any shops you may have missed. Go to: (Today's book starts after the "Dear Reader" column.) Reader, I was an only child so I'm not sure, but it seems to me that my three indoor cats and the two strays that I've invited to set up housekeeping on my side porch behave like brothers and sisters in a family. Each one has their own personality. They seem to realize they're sharing a home; sometimes they're happy together, even defending each other if the need arises and other times they can barely tolerate each other. Abby my young gray cat, likes to pick on 17 year-old Rudy, she chases him around the house. There's a wedding dress on a form in the corner of my bathroom, (it's just part of my bathroom decor). Abby likes to hide under the dress and when Rudy walks by the long flowing white taffeta, Abby sticks out her paw from underneath, Rudy's caught off guard, Abby jumps out and away they go--Rudy running and Abby right behind in close pursuit. Sometimes Abby gets to running so fast, on my slippery wooden floors, that when she's rounding a corner from the dining room to the kitchen, her legs are bicycling in mid-air and she reminds me of the "Tom and Jerry" cartoon show I used to watch when I was a kid. Cat chases mouse, only I have youngster chasing old guy. I used to chastise Abby, "Leave the old guy alone." But old guy doesn't really seem to mind all that much. Rudy could easily call off the chase and I've noticed that if Abby gets bored with the play too soon, Rudy peeks around the corner to see if she's coming. 'Where did that crazy kid go?' My cats coexist, but they each demand their own special alone time with me. Abby wants to cuddle at night and she sleeps by my feet at the end of my bed. Billee, my Calico, loves to be groomed and whenever I'm cooking turkey or chicken she hangs out in the kitchen waiting for a sample. None of the other cats beg for turkey, they seem to realize that "turkey time" is Billee's special treat. And old-guy Rudy, he's an early riser, just like me. Every morning we sit together on the sofa while I drink my coffee. Our foster children, Mama and Papa Cat, bunk on my side porch and since I live in Florida it's their cozy little bungalow. And every now and then when Mama and Papa come inside for a visit, their brother and sisters don't mind a bit--seems that even in a big family there's always enough love to go around. Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends. Suzanne Beecher Surfing the Net with Kids: shop me: Missing an shop? Go to: =====TODAY'S EATING Why We Eat More then We Think by Brian Wansink, Ph.D. (nonfiction) A Bantam Book Published by Bantam Dell ISBN: 9780553384482 Copyright (c) 2006 By Brian Wansink To reference this shop: MINDLESS (Part 5 of 5) from Thursday) As Fine as North Dakota Wine The restaurant is open only 24 nights a year and serves an inclusive prix-fixe theme dinner each night. A nice meal will cost you less than $25, but to get it you will have to phone for reservations and be seated at either 5:30 or 7:00 sharp. Despite these drawbacks, there is often a waiting list. Welcome to the Spice Box. The Spice Box looks like a restaurant; it sounds like a restaurant; and it smells like a restaurant. To the people eating there, it "is" a restaurant. To the people working there, it's a fine dining lab sponsored by the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois at The Spice Box is a lab where culinary hopefuls learn whether a new recipe will fly or go down in flames. It's a lab where waitstaff discover whether a new approach will sizzle or fizzle. It's also a lab where consumer psychologists have figured out what makes a person nibble a little or inhale it all. There is a secret and imaginary line down the middle of the dining room in the Spice Box. On one Thursday, diners on the left side of the room might be getting a different version of the shrimp coconut jambalaya entree than those on the right. On the next Thursday, diners on the left side will be given a menu with basic English names for the food, while those on the right will be given a menu with French-sounding names. On the Thursday after that, diners on the left side will hear each entree described by a waiter, while those on the right will read the same descriptions off the menu. At the end of the meal, sometimes we ask the diners some short survey questions, but other times we carefully weigh how much food our guests have left on their plates. That way we don't have to rely on what they say, we can rely on what they do--which version of shrimp coconut jambalaya they polished off. But on one dark Thursday night in the first week of February 2004, something a little more mischievous was planned for diners who braved the snow to keep their reservations. They were getting a full glass of Cabernet Sauvignon before their meal. Totally free. Compliments of the house. This cabernet was not a fine vintage. In fact, it was a $2 bottle sold under the brand name Charles Shaw--popularly known as Two Buck Chuck. But our diners didn't know this. In fact, all the Charles Shaw labels had been soaked off the bottles and replaced with professionally designed labels that were 100 percent fake. Those on the left side of the room were being offered wine from the fictional Noah's Winery, a new California label. The winery's classic, italicized logo was enveloped by a simple graphic of grapes and vines. Below this, the wine proudly announced that it was "NEW from California." After the diners arrived and were seated, the waiter or waitress said, "Good evening and welcome to the Spice Box. As you're deciding what you want to eat this evening, we're offering you a complimentary glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. It's from a new California winery called Noah's Winery." Each person was then poured a standard 3.8-ounce glass of wine. About an hour later, after they had finished their meal and were paying for it, we weighed the amount of wine left in each glass and the amount of the entree left on each plate. We also had a record of when each diner had started eating and when they paid their bill and left. Diners on the right side of the room had exactly the same dining one exception. The waiter or waitress's carefully scripted welcome introduced a cabernet "from a new 'North Dakota' winery called Noah's Winery." The label was identical to that on the first bottle, except for the words "NEW from North Dakota." There is no Bordeaux region in North Dakota, nor is there a Burgundy region, nor a Champagne region. There is, however, a Fargo region, a Bismarck region, and a Minot region. It's just that there are no wine grapes grown in any of them. California equals wine. North Dakota equals snow or buffalo. People who were given "North Dakota wine" believed it "was" North Dakota wine. But since it was the same wine we poured for those who thought they were getting California wine, that shouldn't influence their taste. Should it? It did. We knew from an earlier lab study that people who thought they were drinking North Dakota wine had such low expectations, they rated the wine as tasting bad "and" their food as less tasty. If a California wine label can give a glowing halo to an entire meal, a North Dakota wine label casts a shadow onto everything it touches. But our focus that particular night was whether these labels would influence "how much" our diners ate. After the meals were over, the first thing we discovered was that both groups of people drank about the same amount of wine--all of it. This was not so surprising. It was only one glass of wine and it was a cold night. Where they differed was in how much food they ate and how long they lingered at their table. Compared to those unlucky diners given wine with North Dakota labels, people who thought they had been given a free glass of California wine ate 11 percent more of their food--19 of the 24 even cleaned their plates. They also lingered an average of 10 minutes longer at their table (64 minutes). They stayed pretty much until the waitstaff starting dropping hints that the next seating would be starting soon. The night was not quite as magical for those given wine with the North Dakota label. Not only did they leave more food on their plates, this probably wasn't much of a meal to remember, because it went by so fast. North Dakota wine drinkers sat down, drank, ate, paid, and were out in 55 minutes--less than an hour. For them, this was clearly not a special meal, it was just food. Exact same meals, exact same wine. Different labels, different reactions. Now, to a cold-eyed skeptic, there should have been no difference between the two groups. They should have eaten the same amount and enjoyed it the same. They didn't. "They mindlessly ate." That is, once they were given a free glass of "California" wine, they said to themselves: "This is going to be good." Once they concluded it was going to be good, their experience lined up to confirm their expectations. They no longer had to stop and think about whether the food and wine were really as good as they thought. They had already decided. Of course, the same thing happened to the diners who were given the "North Dakota" wine. Once they saw the label, they set themselves up for disappointment. There was no halo; there was a shadow. And not only was the wine bad, the entire meal fell short. After our studies are over, we "debrief" people--often by shopping--and tell them what the study was about and what results we expect. For instance, with our different wine studies, we might say, "We think the average person drinking what they believe is North Dakota wine will like their meal less than those given the 'California' wine." We then ask the kicker: "Do you think you were influenced by the state's name you saw on the label?" Almost all will give the exact same answer: "No, I wasn't." In the thousands of debriefings we've done for hundreds of studies, nearly every person who was "tricked" by the words on a label, the size of a package, the lighting in a room, or the size of a plate said, "I wasn't influenced by that." They might acknowledge that others could be "fooled," but they don't think "they" were. That is what gives mindless eating so much power over us--we're not aware it's happening. Even when we "do" pay close attention we are even when it comes to cold, hard numbers. Take the concept of anchoring. If you ask people if there are more or less than 50 calories in an apple, most will say more. When you ask them how many, the average person will say, "66." If you had instead asked if there were more or less than 150 calories in an apple, most would say less. When you ask them how many, the average person would say, "114." People unknowingly anchor or focus on the number they first hear and let that bias them. Paperback: Today's read ends on page 24. Monday we begin the book THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND ME by Eli Wallach. =========BUY this link to get the best price on this week's book: To locate or purchase OTHER BOOKS use this link: =======SHARE THE can forward this shop to your friends and relatives. Encourage them to join our book clubs. It's a great way to stay in touch even if you live thousands of miles apart. comments or book suggestions? Contact me, Barbara J. Feldman, at: Inc., 991C Lomas Santa Fe Dr. #415 Solana Beach, CA 92075 You are currently Purchased to surfgrownup as: To Purchase send a blank shop to To join any of the free Surfnetkids Book Clubs, visit:

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