Favorite foods: why ice cream rates high

Here's the latest research on people's favorite foods:

Favorite Food
  Women Men
Fruits, vegetables and/or salads 30% 8%
Red meat 8% 25%

 

Favorite Deserts
  Women Men
Ice cream 47% 47%
Pie 28% 18%

If you're wondering why ice cream ranks so high for both genders, researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry in London think they have found the answer.

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to take pictures of the brains of research subjects before and after eating vanilla ice cream, they found ice cream lights up the brain's pleasure zones. "Ice cream has an immediate effect on parts of the brain that previous research shows responds to pleasure tastes," say the UK scientists.

This is the first research that shows ice cream makes you happy. The scientists didn't study chocolate ice cream. Who knows? That would probably show a double whammy to the happiness parts of the brain.

Here's something else to ponder. If ice cream makes people happy, then enticing them to have some ice cream before they leave your facility might create a happy memory of their visit.