You should never shop for groceries on an empty stomach.
Most people know the age-old diet advice about grocery shopping when you are hungry: You are more likely to buy fattening, unhealthy foods. So avoid it.
But the weight-loss maxims found in diet books do not always hold up in the real world. So two researchers at Cornell devised an experiment to test this notion.
The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, was carried out in two phases. In the first, 68 men and women, asked not to eat for five hours, were brought in on two separate days and allowed to "shop" for food in a simulated grocery store, which offered low-calorie options like fruits, vegetables and chicken breasts, as well as higher-calorie junk foods.
Before shopping, half of the subjects were given a snack. Both groups ultimately purchased a similar number of items, but those who shopped while hungry picked the highest-calorie foods.
In the second phase, the researchers followed 82 shoppers in a real grocery store. Once again, they found that people shopping at times when they were most likely to be hungry opted for calorie-dense foods.
In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Rita F. Redberg, a cardiologist, said the findings gave scientific support to common-sense advice.
"I think all diet guides include the advice to 'never go grocery shopping when you are hungry,'â" she wrote, "and when I had young children, I added 'and never with young children' - because either of these factors seem to lead to less wise food choices."
The bottom line
Shopping on an empty stomach does in fact influence food choices.
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