How Junk Food Tricks Our Taste Buds

Jun 24, 2009

It would take most of us all of two seconds to name our top ten “can’t-say-no-to” foods. Are those tasty treats irresistible because of our lack of willpower or is the food industry using our sense of taste against us? Dr. Kessler, a former FDA employee, has the long awaited answer in his new book “The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite”. So what sparked the idea for the book? Dr. Kessler’s own weakness for chocolate chip cookies. Because just like the rest of us, even he found himself lusting after delicious gooey cookies and found the inability to say "No" frustrating.

Find healthy snack substitutes for your favorite treats >>

I’m sure you’ve wondered time and time again why that Snickers bar keeps calling you even though you’ve blocked its number multiple times. The answer is simple; the food industry has combined your three strongest taste sensations into one delicious and addicting treat. Once those flavors hit your tongue, your brain forgets about calories and begins to do a happy “this is the greatest day of my life” dance. The bad news is that we crave that happy rewarding sensation over and over, which leads to overeating. So while we’re breaking a sweat, trying to burn off the calories in spin class, food makers are working hard to engineer foods with the perfect combination of fat, salt, and sugar to lure us into stores and restaurants.

Four healthy desserts >>

I know this might all feel like an endless and vicious cycle, but fear not my friends, just because the food industry has tapped into your brain’s wiring, it doesn’t mean that they covered all their bases. “The End of Overeating,” has found a loophole. According to Dr. Kessler’s book, understanding food triggers and making eating more planned and structured can help manage overeating. Whatever you do don’t give up! Fighting your own brain physiology is not easy, but the book does offer ways to become more educated on food and modify existing perceptions to change eating habits. Does it work? Well, Dr. Kessler has admitted to being an overeater himself and he claims that writing this book has help him win the battle against his eating habits.

5 new ways to eat peanut butter >>

Could you really be addicted to cookies? >>

What's your hard-to-resist food? How do you manage your cravings?

Comments

From: celljammer
Date: 12/08/2009 - 08:29 pm

As a Newbie, I am always searching online for articles that can help me. Thank you

From: riyanjason
Date: 12/05/2009 - 06:12 am

There are a number of reasons we like junk food. These include the taste, the texture and even the way our genes have been coded. Our bodies have been “hardwired” over time to crave certain foods by nearly 200,000 years of evolutionary adaptation.

Junk foods typically are loaded with simple carbs and sugars, fats and sodium. At a very primitive level, our bodies love these things (as well as amino acids, often in the form of meat or eggs.)

When we were hunters and gatherers, simple carbs and sugars gave us quick energy, fats provided us with long-term energy stores and prevented hunger, and sodium ensured that our cells regulated internal and external pressure. Amino acids from game helped build strength and muscle, which came in handy when hunting wireless internet providers. Sodium also enhanced the flavor of foods and made them more palatable, which helped when your diet was primarily wild game, root vegetables or whatever else you could forage.

These factors were critical for our survival thousands of years ago, when our food supply was spotty, people needed sources of quick energy to hunt down game, vitamins and minerals were limited by geography (for example, if you didn’t live near an ocean, salt could be hard to come by) and foods were bland because of the scarcity of herbs and spices.

Post new comment