Can a Diet For Intellectuals Make You Smart and Hot?

The Instinct diet is christening a new meme in cerebral eating that addresses the needs of heavier brainiacs everywhere.

Pioneered at by Susan Roberts, director of the Energy Metabolism Laboratory at Tufts, the diet attacks the two primary drivers of failure in dieting: deprivation and hunger.

The diet satisfies hunger by not prescribing the piddling child’s portions recommended by many plans and at the same time eliminates the deprivation approach which has been shown to be the neurological basis for most dieting regimes. Roberts’ founds her approach in returning the tastebuds to foods we love: mozzarella, seitan, gazpacho, beans. There’s even meat.

With nods toward the idea that dieting is a textbook example of mind over matter, the instinct diet is getting thorough exposure at Psychology Today.

New York University nutritionist extraordinaire Marion Nestle has charted American eating habits from farm to table. Part of a rich conversation with Big Think, Nestle explaines how we got so fat in the first place. (Hint: it has to do with farmers and working women.)