Upon release,
High Fidelity News and Record Review said, "Bleak Stuff, the kind usually inspired by reading too many street fashion magazines or believing all the nonsense written about
The Velvets. The title hits two out of three but destroys the equation; maybe this mob should watch
Tom Jones instead of
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife etc."
Robin Denselow of
The Guardian described the album as "a set of varied, oddball emotional mood songs". He added, "There are thoughtful, gently-pounding dramatic ballads matched with rumbling keyboards or swirling Arabic and Eastern effects, along with muted galloping rockers with low-key vocals. They are not an obvious commercial success, but deserve to survive because of their original material."
Mick Mercer of
Melody Maker concluded, "What a record – never knowing from one minute to the next whether you'll be knocked out, or seduced!" He added, "Nobody else does what Furniture do. Oh, granted,
Deacon Blue do an idiot's version, but they never get close." Simon Williams of
New Musical Express wrote, "Furniture are immensely gifted storytellers, working on the premise that from small aches, monstrous agonies grow. They always fall for the unorthodox elements: the shimmering, economic guitars, low profile yet hard hitting rhythms, even the mysticism of the Far East.
Food, Sex and Paranoia is an exquisite oddity." In the US, Steve Hochman of
Los Angeles Times commented, "Rather than politics, Furniture's obsessions are all romantic – actually, about the emotionally fatal, all-consuming side of romance. But the co-ed quintet's music is at times as haunting as McCarthy's, sometimes reminiscent of Prefab Sprout or Deacon Blue, though often more textually inventive and dynamic." In his book
The Virgin Encyclopedia of Eighties Music, Colin Larkin described the album as "overlooked" and one that "should have resurrected their career". ==Track listing==