The music you hear at meal time can affect the type of food you eat. This is the discovery of a new study from Aarhus University in Denmark, which compared food choices when people listened to different types of music.
One group listened to light, melancholy music, which can cause sad emotions.
In the journal Appetite, researchers report that the slow music group was more likely to consume healthier foods.
Perhaps because the group was not distracted, or did not experience negative emotions from the music, they paid more attention to the best food choices.
This is not the first time that noise indicates what we eat.
In 2013 researchers at the University of Birmingham, analyzed 24 studies on the effects of noise distraction and visual stimuli such as television and found that not only do we eat more food at one meal when we are distracted, but we eat more at the next meal as well.
In fact, some experts say that any music - or other disturbing noise such as TV or conversation - should be avoided at meal time and suggest that it is an effective means of controlling food intake.
Meanwhile, 'conscious eating' (part of which focuses on eating slowly, without interruption) is listed in Germany's national dietary guidelines as a way to access all meals.
'It simply reduces distractions that can trigger over-consumption and potentially increases meal satisfaction,' says Professor Jason Halford, a psychology and overweight specialist at the University of Leeds. He also tackles a phenomenon called the 'crisis effect', who believe that listening to yourself eating noisy foods encourages you to slow down your eating.
