#486 - Smoothie Problems & Tips, Food Variety & Appetite, Gut On Fast Track, Optimizing Your Environment, Is Drinking Healthy, Decluttering, Food Sensitivity Epidemic, And More!

So this study is published in Appetite June 2026, June 1st.

So it's very new.

And the title is Food Variety Affects Food Selection and Variety Seeking Behaviors in an Immersive Virtual Reality Food Buffet.

Which is kind of ironic because we do our proverbial breaking of the fast in our minds on this show.

But this was the use of virtual reality food buffet.

Basically what they did...

So it was done at Penn State.

And they had 50 adults ages 18 to 65, 32 of which were female.

And they selected foods for a meal... once a week for three weeks and a randomized crossover design.

So what that means is that the participants were like their own, they're being compared to each other and it was random.

And each week they would randomly get one of the three options, which was the buffet that was set at low.

So it only had nine foods.

The buffet that was medium had 18 foods or the buffet that was high and had 27 foods, like different types of foods.

And they found that the more variety that there was, the more the participants picked more food to eat in this virtual situation.

So in the medium condition, they picked... 422 more calories than the low.

And then in the high, it was 649 more calories than the low.

And also as variety increased, they also selected a greater total number of foods, which I would...

That makes sense.

I would predict that.

And it was driven by higher energy-dense foods rather than lower energy-dense ones.

So when there was more options, like 27 options, people were more likely to pick the higher calorie stuff and pick more different types of foods.

And like I said, like literally they picked 650 more calories worth at the high one.

And yeah, so basically the takeaway, because this has a lot of implications for not just buffets, but also the grocery store and for me, how you stock your kitchen.

So basically if you surround yourself with a lot more options, This study seems to indicate that you are going to eat more calories.

You're going to pick more foods.