The Bread of Life (2): The Message in the Munchies

Alan Hirsch, neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, says that what you munch sends a message.

Are you crazy for cheese curls? Passionate about popcorn? Nuts about nuts?

What you snack on says a lot about who you are.

Alan Hirsch is the neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. He had 800 volunteers take personality tests and then asked them to name their favorite snacks. The results, reported in the journal Alternative Medicine (May 2007), were astounding. People who share a personality type choose the same snack 95 percent of the time.

Lovers of cheese curls have a high sense of morals and ethics.

People with a passion for popcorn are the take-charge type.

Folks who are nutty for nuts are even-tempered, easy to get along with and highly empathetic. [See the sidebar for more connections between snacks and personality types.]

While this link might sound like a stretch, Hirsch says it makes perfect sense — biologically. “Food preferences reside in the olfactory lobe,” he says, “the same part of the brain where the personality...