You are what you eat…

Cake-eaters ‘sexually frustrated’
From: The Australian
October 18, 2005

EATING steak is a symbol of pent up anger, gorging on chips means you are stressed and filling up on cakes is a sure-fire sign that you are sexually frustrated.

When it comes to betraying mood, it seems, you are what you eat.

A study has found that a person’s choice of food is dictated by their state of mind and diners apparently seek out dishes to regulate how they feel.

Angry people turn to chewy foods while the sexually frustrated crave carbohydrate-rich biscuits and cakes.

Those under stress reach for salty snacks while people going through crises such as divorce tend to revert to the foods of childhood such as ice cream.

Jealous people often stack their plates indiscriminately – a consequence of having had to compete with siblings at the dinner table in childhood, say researchers.

The findings are the result of a US study of the eating habits of 500 people who kept diaries about their choices of meals.

Carried out as part of a study of addiction, it is thought to be the first to link individual foods with particular states of mind.

Cynthia Power, the Illinois-based psychotherapist behind the survey, said: “Food can be used to change feelings the person doesn’t want to have.

“Only hard, crunchy mastication will suffice when someone needs to take out their anger.

“Alternatively, loneliness is artificially assuaged with bulky, fill-up-the stomach foods.”