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Potato chip lovers are ambitious overachievers who’d sell their soul for a million dollars, according to a recent study that links junk food preferences to personality traits.
It’s like a Rorschach test for taste buds, and we owe it to the intrepid researchers at Chicago’s Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation (home of the Fighting Nasal Passages). They subjected 800 people to a battery of psychological tests as well as a chip-by-chip tally of all things consumed.
The study, led by Dr. Alan Hirsch, found that most people enjoyed junk food more than psych
tests. No surprises there. Undaunted, they delved deeper into the uncharted connection
between personality and empty calories.
Gives new meaning to “You Are What You Eat”
What they found is shocking, or at least compelling enough to warrant its own paragraph.
Potato-chip lovers, as you know, are ambitious. Tortilla-chip lovers are conservative
perfectionists. Pretzel lovers are energetic and often bored by everyday life (so why do they
like the most boring snack?). Cracker lovers are shy and thoughtful (remember that Ritz-lovin’
wallflower in high school?). Cheese-curl lovers are formal and conscientious (which explains
all those black-tie cheese curl charity events). And meat-snack lovers are social, but sometimes
a little too trusting.
What does this mean? No more worrying about whether to join the Peace Corps or go to law
school—if you like chips, you’re doomed to work 80 hours a week. The study was developed to help employers make hiring decisions, so power-hungry potato chip eaters will soon
rule a Triscuit-eating working class—just as Orwell prophesized.
Just chewing the fat?
Some critics lambaste the study as unscientific baloney, but they’re just jealous, or maybe
they’re just hungry. Until they come up with an entertaining counter-argument (isn’t that
what’s science is all about?), it’s safe to make sweeping generalizations: Pretzels cause
bungee jumping, and no one who eats cheese curls is destined to become a mob hit man.
Bottom line: Think twice before you gnaw on a decade-old shingle of beef jerky. Such
gastrointestinal road kill may determine who you are, or at least how you’ll spend the next
few hours.
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