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Easier to Over-Eat with Organic?

A Soil Association stamp is designed to give consumers peace of mind when choosing food, but could it, in fact, give you a false sense of security? Findings presented in April at the Experimental Biology conference in California showed how people tended to eat far more of foods labelled organic. Indeed people people who ate organic biscuits believed that the product contained 40% fewer calories than the non-organic equivalent!

Brian Wansink, Cornell professor and author of the book, Marketing Nutrition said “An organic label gives a food a ‘health halo’…It’s the same basic reason people tend to overeat any snack food that’s labeled as healthy or low fat. They underestimate the calories and over-reward themselves by eating more.” He also advised that if you do want to get a more accurate estimate of the calorie count of a food, take your best guess and then double it!

Source: Medical News Today