How the Web is changing the way we eat

A restaurant chain shrinks plate size to appeal to the social networking crowd. Is this the way of the future?

By Sara Breselor

How the internet is changing the way we eat

Topics:Food Psychology, Food traditions, Food

Every now and then, a trend takes a mysterious turn. Here we are, in the midst of an era in which portion sizes have been growing steadily for decades, and suddenly, small plates are making a comeback. As USA Today writer Bruce Horovitz pointed out last week, bite-size menu options are a hot new thing at casual chain restaurants like California Pizza Kitchen and Houlihan’s. Of course, small plates are a concession to budget-conscious eaters and possibly an attempt at a more upscale feel, but in a surprising twist, Bob Hartnett, CEO of Houlihan’s, claims that the change is specially targeted at younger, Web-savvy customers. Small plates, he explains, are for diners who are “just as comfortable sharing a plate of food as they are sharing social media.”

And there is even some scientific proof to back up his theory. A study of Internet use and eating habits in Korean teenagers showed that the people who used the Web most tended to eat smaller meals. Out of the entire study, which compared light, moderate and heavy levels of “Internet addiction,” the heavy users were the only group in which reduced meal size was a more prevalent trend than unchanged or increased meal size — all of which raises an intriguing question. We’ve spent plenty of time discussing how the Internet is changing the way we read, the way we communicate, and the way we fall in love and break up, but how is the Internet changing the way we eat?

For better or worse, social media-style sharing is now part of our cultural zeitgeist — “liking,” tweeting, describing and evaluating all our tedious comings and goings — and, undoubtedly, this has also changed the way we experience and react to food. For the Web-obsessed, eating is no longer just about privately savoring a meal. It’s about Yelping and blogging, and, as the New York Times recently explored, taking pictures of our food and posting them online. Increasingly, our meals are plugged in to the broader social experience of eating, an ongoing conversation about millions of meals like ours.

In that context, it makes sense that younger diners might be forgoing individual meals in favor of passing around a slew of small plates. Consider it the dining equivalent of updating your Facebook status: Sara Breselor is having Houlihan’s Disco Fries and they’re not quite what she had hoped for. A trail of comments follows (but the pickle fries ROCK!!! Ah yes, Sara Breselor and three others like this). And so on.

“I think it mimics the fragmentation of information,” says Dan Zarrella, Web marketing specialist and author of “The Social Media Marketing Handbook.” Whereas many people used to rely on one or two good sources of news and information, they now check 20 different websites. “People have grown up with this idea that it’s not just about one key thing, it’s about a lot of different things together,” Zarrella says. “I could see how eating behavior could mirror that preference.”

Much has been made of the idea that the Internet has ruined our ability to focus on large, sustained ideas, books and long articles, and perhaps a trend toward little servings reflects our anxiety about decision-making in an information-saturated world. Committing to a single choice is much more difficult when your consciousness is so crowded by possible options. Even in a restaurant, where there are a finite number of choices, the same anxiety kicks in. The pear and arugula salad looks great, but what if the roasted beets are better?

Perhaps this is why the new “small plates” menus are full of “combo” options that let diners cover a lot more ground than they could with a single full-size serving. Houlihan’s, for example, has a new menu of mini desserts, and they offer the option of ordering “any five” desserts for $12.99. But there are only five options on the mini menu, so opting for the combo means ordering all of them, and thus getting to enjoy dessert without the anxiety of having to choose just one of them. (Then again, maybe it’s just an attempt to make more money by upsizing the order.)

Of course, the Web is already having a huge effect on restaurant trends. Sites like Yelp can tangibly impact a restaurant’s success, and the people who are influential on Yelp are outgoing, entertaining and highly connected. Which means that restaurant trends are being guided less by lovers of food and more by lovers of interaction. “I have a bunch of followers on Twitter, because I like people and I like making friends on Twitter,” Zarrella says. “So if I talk about a restaurant, there’s a very good chance that I like it because it feeds into the social need that I have.” He says that the person who is most influential on social media “is not necessarily going to be judging restaurants by their culinary merits, but they’ll be judging restaurants based on a social experience.”

And one thing is clear: In the future, the online world will be far more closely integrated into our everyday experience of eating. “One big technology shift that’s happening, and that I think is going to be very important to restaurants, is the blending of offline and online,” Zarrella says. We’re already seeing this in what Zarrella calls “augmented reality,” things like the Yelp application for smart phones, which allows users strolling city streets to take a picture of a restaurant and instantly call up hundreds of its reviews.

This is the kind of Internet-mediated interaction that is likely to define restaurant culture in the near future. Zarrella himself recently experienced a dramatic example of how social media can change the interaction between restaurants and customers. A self-professed “beer nerd,” Zarrella went to a bar in Boston, where, he says, “There are these two really rare beers on the menu. One of them was sold out, so I got the other one. I was so excited about it that I took a picture of the beer and I posted it to Twitter, saying, ‘this is my new favorite place!’” he says.

Then, the hand of the virtual reached out and brushed against the real. “The bartender saw the tweet,” Zarrella says. “He had just finished his shift. And it turns out, the other beer that I had wanted to try — the one that was sold out — he had bought it, and was splitting it with his friend at the next table over. So he was like, ‘I liked your tweet, thanks a lot for that,’ and he gave me a glass of the really rare beer.”

: Sara Breselor is an Editorial Fellow with Salon Food. More Sara Breselor

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The Joan Crawford of the kitchen talks drugs, alcohol and the ultimate danger to her children -- McDonald's

By Drew Grant

Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't even own a can opener... just a knife.

Topics:Gwyneth Paltrow, Alcoholism, Celebrity, Drugs, Food Psychology, Movies

Everything in moderation, especially moderation. That was the truism passed down to me from my father when we would turn into the McDonald’s drive-thru and order our occasional Big Macs and Happy Meals. And despite what macrobiotic mommy dearest Gwyneth Paltrow might think, I somehow grew up without any Mc’Deformities.

During a conversation with former BBC host Jonathan Ross for the iTunes Festival earlier this week, Gwyneth confessed that she never let her kids pass through the Golden Arches, something that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who hears the self-confessed “foodie” talk about her healthy culinary home.

: Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant

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The psychology behind why we turn to fatty staples like French fries and fried chicken when life gets rough

By Anneli Rufus, Gilt

Topics:Food Psychology, Food

When the recession hit, you could hear the words buzzing from the cell phones of every restaurant consultant in America: “It’s time for comfort food.” But under the mashed potatoes and meatloaf lies a question: What does “comfort food” really mean? What about it actually comforts us?

Let’s look at some big-time comfort foods: Fried chicken. French fries. Chocolate cake. When people talk about comfort food, the obvious explanation is that it’s all about nostalgia and missing Mommy. But that’s also cultural. Look at lutefisk, natto and the reddish-black blood sausage I was served once by a sad Belgian who took comfort in what struck me as something you might see in a hospital. And really, it takes more than this to create the rush of sensations that make us feel safe, calm and cared for. It’s a complex interplay of memory, history and brain chemistry, and while some basics apply — most of us are soothed by the soft, sweet, smooth, salty and unctuous — the specifics are highly personal.

In a certain cheese shop in my town, there is a rack of rolls. Gleaming golden outside and airy, stretchy, satiny inside, they’re sourdough and only vaguely square as if cut by clowns. One fits in my palm, then my sweatshirt pocket, which it must because this is the acid test by which I define comfort food: It’s small. It’s portable. It can be consumed silently. My comfort food must never call attention to itself. It must be dazzlingly bland, like Zen koans. Rolls. Marshmallows. Mochi. One round bowl of rice.

For you, of course, it’s something else. Celery, say, or vindaloo or wings. A friend of mine craves slick, sticky, flamboyant food that she can stir with slow, exaggerated swirls to make a sucking sound. This is her comfort food.

When you begin to eat, your eyes, hands and mouth start the chain of command. Then the brain kicks in. Sugar and starch spur serotonin, a neurotransmitter known to increase a sense of well-being. (It’s what makes Prozac work.) Salty foods spur oxytocin, aka the “cuddle chemical,” a hormone that is also spiked by hugs and orgasm. Hence, potato chips. Mice unable to taste the difference between regular and extra-high-calorie food in a recent study preferred the high-calorie kind, which suggests that fattening food appeals simply because it is fattening. Which makes sense, given how much fuel our prehistoric ancestors burned crisscrossing savannahs, fleeing carnivores and chasing prey. Fat is a good balm for the fear of starvation.

There’s also how the brain links emotion, memory and sensory stimuli. Popsicles nibbled to break childhood fevers, pizza when your track team won, coconut on your honeymoon: The brain associates good experiences with specific flavors, fragrances and textures, coding them as harbingers of happiness. Henceforth, even when you neither have a fever nor have won a race, eating Popsicles still brings the rush of relief and pizza feels like a reward.

But buried in this (like the caramel at the heart of a Milk Dud) is the deeper question of what counts as comfort.

Neuroscientists define it as the opposite of stress. Whether with pharmaceuticals or firearms or flannel sheets or funnel cake, we seek to de-stress by any means necessary. The brain reaches its relaxed, restorative comfort state when we feel safe and/or when we receive rewards and/or when we feel part of something bigger than ourselves — a culture or a community.

Security, reward and connectedness: Each of these three feelings activates a different portion of the brain, and each of these is more or less crucial to each of us, which further explains why we don’t all relish the same comfort foods. A competitive person or one who feels chronically undervalued cherishes foods that the brain has coded as rewards. A loner finds no comfort in those foods the brain links with community. An abused person who lives in fear might hoard safety foods.

When we feel endangered, unsung and/or lonesome, we eat.

Food is a fort we build. Rolls in my pocket feel like ballast. As a former anorexic, I imagine they will keep me safe because they are small, round, clean, dry and can be eaten stealthily. Someone else might feel most secure when eating pudding, say, because she ate it in the playroom before knowing the meaning of pain.

Food is the gift we give ourselves. My husband beams as if it’s Christmas whenever Sriracha sauce or tonsil-searing salsa make him sweat. His Jewish/Danish DNA never predicted this. He grew up in a capsicum-free home. Yet kimchee signals “treat” to him, because hot-spicy foods were his private discovery, not something that was ever given to him but something he gave himself. They are his prize, and thus they comfort him in that explosive, pore-widening way by which hot saunas heal. (Which makes me think: Is it reincarnation? Given that some people find comfort in what they grew up with, and others specifically in what they didn’t grow up with, do we choose our comfort foods or do they choose us? Does this process parallel the ways in which we acquire other preferences — for bondage, say, or for stiletto heels or hairy men?)

Food is also the friend who never disappoints or ditches us. Psychologists call comfort food a “social surrogate” — in other words, not quite replacing real companions but reminding us of them. Participants in yet another recent study felt less lonely after writing about — and not even necessarily eating — comfort foods. The psychologists who designed that study theorized correctly that consuming comfort foods soothes us in the exact same ways as wearing our favorite clothes or watching our favorite TV shows. Reminding us of those who love us and/or look and talk like us, comfort food also reminds us of who we are. Away from home, we seek the foods of home.

Of course, all matters of psychology are unrelentingly complex. Comfort food feels good, but — for some of us — in that first rush is also a twinge: For some, comfort food invokes a special hot-faced shame because both food and comfort are so intimate, and using one to do the other borders on self-pleasure. From there, it’s just one small step to guilty pleasure, which is what most of us would call caramel corn and curly fries. Perhaps it’s because in this crowded, hard world, we have convinced ourselves that seeking comfort is itself embarrassing, as if need makes us weak. We are ashamed to crave the salty, starchy, soft, unctuous and sweet, because we tell ourselves we are too smart to want what the judgmental would call junk — although, surrounded by food that is market-tested to appeal to our most primal urges, we don’t stand a chance. If comfort food exposes those urges, a drive-thru window can become a harsh confessional.

: Anneli Rufus is the author of several books, most recently "Magnificent Corpses: Searching through Europe for St. Peter's Head, St. Stephen's Hand, St. Chiara's Heart and Other Saints' Relics" (Marlowe & Co.). More Anneli Rufus

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We spoke to the TLC show's nutritionist about the science of food addiction -- and her "shock therapy" approach

By Drew Grant

JJ Virgin and Dr. Mike Dow on "Freaky Eaters."

Topics:Interviews, Food Advice, Food Psychology, Food television, Reality TV, Television

JJ Virgin has one of the stranger jobs out there: After spending 25 years studying health and fitness, she now spends her time on TLC, turning around the lives of food addicts on “Freaky Eaters.” (No, that’s not the show about people who eat laundry soap, a similar program on the same network called “My Super Strange Addiction.”) “Freaky Eaters” documents the life of a person addicted to a certain type of edible food — french fries, meat, and corn syrup have all been on the menu — as well as their recovery with the help of two specialists, Virgin and Dr. Mike Dow.

We spoke to JJ Virgin over the phone about what qualifies someone to be a “freaky eater,” as well as some of the more extreme measures they’ve taken on the program to make people confront their dangerous life choices.

This is the second season of the show, and there has been a lot of controversy about programs similar to “Freaky Eaters,” like “Hoarders” and “Intervention.” Some people are wondering if putting these people up on screen is helpful or just exploitative. What is your response to that sort of claim?

On “Freaky Eaters” we are dealing with people who don’t really fall into one specific disorder, one kind of psychological classification that can be treated. These are people that fall through the cracks, and they are desperate. They need help. I watch some of these shows out there that I do think are exploitative — though I do think most of them are more life-changing than exploitative — and I have to tell you, that’s not what we do. We do shock therapy, so you have people see the extent that they need to make the change, but I think everything is done in a very respectful way.

When you are dealing with someone who drinks gallons of tartar sauce and make them wade around in a pool of it, or have a guy who loves meat spend a day turning a pile of it into ground chuck in a freezer basement, would you call that behavioral therapy? Is that something you’d see psychological professionals doing if people weren’t falling through the cracks?

You know, behavioral therapy is really more what we do at the end of the show, what I call the “lateral shift”: having people make small changes in their lives. When someone is an addict of any type, the classic thing is to deny the problem or the extent of it. Shock therapy is to show these people their problem in a way that makes it impossible to deny or to downplay it.

What were some of the more outrageous examples you’ve had on the show?

The meat episode, that was so disgusting. We were hysterically laughing because the meat was spewing everywhere, as it was being ground up. The first season, we had a girl who ate 6,200 calories of sugar every day. She did all her shopping at the dollar store; it was amazing she wasn’t morbidly obese. So we had her lie down in a coffin and covered her with all the sugar she ate, and had her son read off a eulogy about all the things she was going to miss if she died from her lifestyle.

That’s intense.

We also had a pizza guy, where we had him pour all the fat from all the pizzas he ate in a year into a big bucket. And then we had him pour the bucket into jars. And at the end we had him dump the bucket, but instead he threw it, and it landed right on the cameraman, who was then covered in fat goop. And then we had a guy who ate 3-6 burgers a day, so we backed a truck filled with burgers right up to him and dumped out all the patties, just covered him up.

I can see how a lot of this is TV-friendly. Do you have a hard time differentiating yourself from the other TLC show, “My Strange Addiction,” where people eat stuff that is non-edible (like couch cushions, cigarette ash, and laundry detergent)?

People confuse us all the time. But what I think makes our show stand out is how relatable it is. I have people come up and ask me all the time, “This is what I do, am I freaky eater?” And I’m like “No, just because you eat a muffin everyday doesn’t get you qualified, sorry.”

Well that’s what’s so interesting, right? How blurry the lines can get? Because you’re not showing people with Pica, you’re showing people addicted to French fries. And I think a lot of people at home roll their eyes and go “Sure, we’re all addicted to French fries” until they see exactly how much this person is eating of it.

We did have a woman who had Pica and ate a lot of corn syrup, but that is still edible.

In my mind, the difference is severity … you can die from being obese, but it’s probably not going to kill you as fast as, say, downing laundry detergent every day.

Maybe not as fast, but you’ll find what we deal with is way more common, and therefore way more relatable. We try to get to the root of a lot of these issues on the show, because there is a psychological element to it, though a big part of being a “freaky eater” is biochemistry. Many of these people have a food sensitivity. They either are addicted to one taste, or they hate another kind. So the burger guy and the french fries person, they were both supertasters, they could taste things a mile away. And then this year we have a guy addicted to maple syrup, and he’s a “sweet taster”: nothing is sweet enough for him. These people can’t taste sweet well, so they keep wanting things sweeter and sweeter.

That’s interesting: so our predetermined sensitivity to different tastes can determine how hooked we get on a food?

Oh totally…we’re only at the beginning of understanding the biochemistry behind “taste.” It turns out you can taste things all down your G.I. tract. What we’re seeing now is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of some of the extreme forms of people with a tasting sensitivity.

“Freaky Eaters” can be found on TLC at 10:00 and 10:30 EST every Sunday night.

: Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant

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What do you do when your dinner isn't delivered properly? Call the police, of course

By Drew Grant

The police are not here to deal with your delivery mix-up.

Topics:Food fights, Food Business, Food Psychology, Food safety, Viral Video, Television

How many times has this happened to you? You go home and try to enjoy a nice dinner of Chinese food delivery. But when your meal arrives, they’ve got the order completely wrong!

Do you:

A) Call back the restaurant and ask for a refund;

B) Just eat the food and promise to deal with it next time;

C) Call the police

If you answered C, you are not alone. A woman in Savannah, Ga., called 911 to rectify her dinner order yesterday. This was the result:

: Drew Grant is a staff writer for Salon. Follow her on Twitter at @videodrew. More Drew Grant

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A watchdog group is calling for the clown mascot's retirement, but is being creepy grounds for firing?

By Drew Grant

Who wouldn't accept food from this guy?

Topics:Food Business, Food fights, Food Psychology, Food television, Food traditions, Health, Television

McDonald’s is under attack again for force-feeding our nation’s children greasy, delicious fries. A group called Corporate Accountability International took out full-page ads today in several prominent newspapers, titled “Doctor’s Orders: Stop Marketing Junk Food to Children.“

And while this grievance might not seem new, exactly, CAI is launching another campaign on Thursday against Ronald McDonald himself, whom the watchdog group called a “Deep Fried Joe Camel.” They claim Ronald’s the equivalent of a drug pusher for MSG-addicted kids.

But how “friendly” is Ronald? A new study done by outside marketing group Ace Metric found that in a survey group of 500, an overwhelming amount found a guy with big red lips and white greasepaint more creepy than cute.

McDonald’s refuses to give up on Ronald, though, and its defense on why it needs to keep a terrifying clown as its mascot would be charming if it weren’t so ridiculous and backward. Below, five of the responses McDonald’s has given for keeping Ronald on the payroll.

1. Complaint: “It’s really remarkable how often I saw the word ‘creepy’ [in regards to Ronald],” says the V.P. of a company that conducted the survey.

McDonald’s response: “For everyone who may feel that way, there are more who feel the opposite.”

2. Complaint: Ronald McDonald is an evil clown.

McDonald’s response: “He is a force for good,” says McD’s CEO, Jim Skinner.

3. Complaint: Too many damn clowns running around.

McDonald’s response: “There’s only one Ronald,” McDonald’s chief creative officer Marlena Peleo-Lazar said in response to several questions about how many actors portray the smiling clown.

4. Complaint: He is hurting a brand image that is trying to be more adult … like Starbucks.

McDonald’s response: He is the brand image. “It would be almost as if the Geico gecko disappeared, or the Aflac duck,” says one marketing strategist. God forbid.

5. Complaint: Ronald encourages childhood obesity.

McDonald’s response: Around 2004, McDonald’s christened Ronald as a “balanced, active lifestyles ambassador,” and stuck him in commercials where he trained for the Olympics. He got workout clothes. He got a tuxedo. He moved from McDonaldLand into the real world.

You know who can also move into the real world after being trapped in a fantasy land? Freddy Krueger.

It’s actually in CAI’s favor to have a scary mascot act as a deterrent for children trying to buy fries. It should be thanking McDonald’s for keeping such a creepy figure right in front of the golden arches.