Cranberry sauce is perhaps a non-obvious star of the Thanksgiving dinner table. With its rich red color – whether homemade or from the can – the holiday favorite is actually part of the hardwiring in our brain: A new study finds that people favor red-colored foods over green ones, and consistently undervalue the caloric content […]
Conformity Can Be Good for Your Eating Habits
Cookie or apple? Many of us would choose the cookie if we were by ourselves. But what about around others? If you have ever been at, say, a conference where you see many of your peers choosing an apple, you might choose one as well. New research suggests that this behavioral change also happens on […]
Pennies for Treats: Dieting Through Brain Training
What’s the first treat you pull out of your candy bag on Halloween? Probably your favorite guilty pleasure… but what if you could use pennies to train yourself to pick a candy you might not like the most but that might be healthier? A new study finds that we may be able to train our […]
Healthy Decisions are Hard to Make: Q&A with Antonio Rangel
The reason why making healthy choices feels hard is because it is literally hard work. Scientists are finding that different systems within our brains fiercely compete to assign different values to the choices we make. In a recent study led by Cendri Hutcherson of Caltech, researchers saw this competition at play when choosing which snack […]
