Why a meal can spark romantic jealousy

Sharing a meal with a past romantic partner can mean more than just consuming calories at the same time, according to researchers, whose surveys revealed the pangs of jealousy that eating with an ex could elicit in people’s current partners.

The researchers found that meeting an ex for a meal had the potential to prompt more jealousy than did face-to-face interactions not involving food — in this study, these types of meet-ups were represented by getting coffee. The effect was similar for both men and women.

“For romantic partners left out of a meal, we find a common view that lunch, for example, is not ‘just lunch,'” write researchers Kevin Kniffin and Brian Wansink of Cornell University.