This may be the reason you come home with chips and treats.
Helping the environment can pay you the price for a bigger tummy: A new study from Harvard University suggests that super- recyclable bags (the cloth ones sold in the box) may cause you to buy more junk food.
In the study, people who brought recyclable bags to the supermarket were 7 percent more likely to put high-fat, sugar, or sodium foods – like chips or ice cream – in them than shoppers who opted for regular plastic bags.
People who brought the recyclable bags bought on average the equivalent of junk food to an extra bag full of chips or cookies.
Using recyclable bags makes you feel more virtuous because you know that you are helping the environment by using a bag that will not end up on the floor, says Dr. Uma R. Karmakar, author of the study.
However, feeling like you’ve just made a good decision may make you need to reward yourself later – like snacking on candy bars or trying a new Oreo flavor, he says.
Your strategy should be to find another way to reward yourself when you are touring the supermarket. You can buy a better quality coffee than the one you regularly buy, for example.
Planning your shopping list in advance also helps you avoid filling your cart with junk food.
Don’t throw away your recyclable bag!
The more you use it, the less you want to reward yourself for doing it, Karmarkar says.
This because you will begin to see it as an everyday activity? You no longer feel the need to reward yourself for brushing your teeth before going to sleep, right?