Food Memories

Vanata gave participants a pop quiz after they finished ranking the foods. The task: Flip the page over and quickly write down as many of the listed foods as they could remember.

Participants recalled significantly more of the healthy foods than the unhealthy foods. But they weren't particularly likely to recall the foods with high emotional scores, either in terms of the foods' overall emotional response or happiness, excitability, pleasantness, and comfort alone.

"Emotional words were not recalled more than nonemotional words," and "healthy foods were recalled over unhealthy foods," Vanata tells WebMD.

It's not clear why healthy foods were more memorable and emotional foods weren't. In his paper, Vanata calls for research on whether BMI (body mass index) or negative emotional reactions to foods affect memory.

SOURCES: David Vanata, PhD, RD, LD, associate professor, foods and nutrition, Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio. American Dietetic Association Food & Nutrition Conference & Expo, Chicago, Oct. 25-28, 2008.