We all think about food. Whether it's our breakfast at the start of the day, the quick lunch in between or that dinner at the end of the day. However, some people can't stop thinking about food to the point where it's even more on their minds than their spouse, work, or household. No less than a third of Dutch people think about food all day long. Young people are the most hungry in their minds; almost half of this group (46%) think about food all day long. This is apparent from a survey by Thuisbezorgd.nl among more than 1,000 Dutch people*.
Thuisbezorgd.nl investigated how often people think about food during the day. And guess what; food haunts our minds from early in the morning until late at night. And although we logically think about food a lot around breakfast, lunch and dinner, for a large part (44%) of the Dutch people, eating is even so important that they are the first to think about it when they wake up in the morning. It is striking that more than a fifth of the Dutch also indicate that they think a lot about food in the evening after 8 p.m. And 2.5 percent of the Dutch are even kept awake at night by the thoughts of meals and snacks.
Food is in the top three of the things they think about most in a day for 50% of people, while quality time with their partner is in the top three for only 16%. Especially women think of a nice snack rather than an exciting date. Furthermore, 2 in 5 Dutch people in a relationship (40%) say that they regularly think about food more than about their partner. Romanticism is hard to find among young people. More than half of this group thinks more about food every day than about their partner.
Food is seen by many Dutch people as a reward after a busy and hectic day. For 70 percent of men, a nice meal is the ultimate end of the day, while this is 63 percent for women.
For the research, Thuisbezorgd.nl collaborated with neuroscientist Dr. Jack Lewis to explore why we think so much about food:“The human brain has evolved over many thousands of years, but our search for food and drink has always played a major role in our brain activity. After all, it is our basis for survival. An important result of this is the brain's reward pathway, which makes us think about what will give us the greatest reward in terms of food. That is why you can see in the research results that we think so much about food.”
