Foodies love life more than dieters

Dieters and foodies both tend to eat smaller portions, but only one group is happy about it.

People who take time to appreciate the texture, flavour and beauty of food are happier than people who don’t, while dieters are less happy, says a new study from the University of B.C.

Best of all, foodies — what the researchers call Epicurean eaters — are no more likely to be obese than other people, said Yann Cornil, a professor of consumer behaviour and lead author of the study to be published in the journal Appetite.

Nor are foodies older, richer or better educated than other people. Epicureans simply have a different attitude toward food.

People fall into two main camps: People who eat because it is time to eat, because others are eating or in response to negative emotions such as sadness or loneliness, and those who appreciate the ritual of dining and the esthetic pleasure of eating, according to the study by Cornil and co-author Pierre Chandon.

“Dieters make a trade-off between pleasure and health,” said Cornil. “They think that they need to sacrifice the pleasure they expect to get from eating large portions in order to be in better health and have a lower weight.”

By contrast, Epicureans eat less because they know that you don’t require large quantities of food to be happy.

Epicureans are the opposite of gluttons, according to BarbaraJo McIntosh, a former restaurateur and owners of Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks.

“Foodies are people who cook as well as go out to eat and they are people who take care of themselves with food,” she said.

Restaurant menus have evolved to reflect cultural notions about the supposed dangers of fats and carbohydrates to the point that some wonderful dishes are very difficult to sell, she said.

Cornil worries that North Americans have come to think of food as something dangerous.

Cornil is convinced that people can change their attitudes toward food and that family food cultures can be reprogrammed.