What makes us overeat – fat or sugar?

Credation of food specialists walks the legend that Aristotle was the first to explore our ability to distinguish the taste of food. The first and most important in his list of tastes turned out to be sweet, which he described as pure food. The rest is bitter, salty, tart, sharp, astringent and sour – a kind of "seasoning", counterweight, because sweetness overshaps. But the last on his list of major flavors was the one whose ability to waste the pleasure did not give way to sweet, his aristotle called "fatty", or "oil".

Fat gives pleasure

Neurobiologist OXFORD UNIVERSITY Edmund Rolls devoted a number of work with studying how the brain processes information. Rolls scored a dozen volunteer – adults, healthy and moderately hungry people who did not eat 3 hours before the experiment. One after another they entered the cabin for MRI. Inside, they could not move their hands, plastic tubes were introduced into the mouth, sugar syrup came, on the other – a solution of vegetable oil. In addition to the solutions of fat and sugar, the third, control fluid, imitating the usual saliva, received. When the subjects tried fluids to taste and swallowed them, Rolls studied the reaction of their brain. As expected, saliva did not cause special impact. The reaction to sugar syrup was not surprising: very lively, the device registered the electrical activity of the brain in bright yellow. The sweeping turned out to be the result for fat: the brain on the screen was covered as bright as in the case of sugar. Sugar and fat stimulated not only the brain areas associated with hunger and thirst, but also the pleasure center.

Fat makes food tastier

Adam Ancient, who heads the Center for Obesity Research in Seattle University, in 1983 he conducted an experiment: 16 middle-aged students (11 girls and 5 young men) received on 20 different blends of milk, cream and sugar, then the scientist asked how much they liked every combination. Data analysis allowed two important conclusions to come to two important conclusions. An ancient one already knew about the point of bliss for sugar – that our love for him comes only to her, after which the excess sweetness reduces the attractiveness of the product. "But there is no point of bliss for fat," says the ancient. 16 The subjects never complained that the mixtures were too fat, the abundance of fat in food liked their brain, that he never filed a signal to stop. "The body demanded:" The more fat, the better, "said the ancient. – If the point of bliss is, it is above the concentration of fat in the fattest cream. The second Nakhodka concerned the relationship of fat with sugar: Ancient found out that the most fat creams seemed experimentally tastier if you add some sugar in them. Something generated the most powerful relationship. Together, sugar and fat reached this level of attractiveness, which would never have achieved one.

Hidden fat does not saturate

In 2008, a group of Dutch scientists under the control of Mirrian Wang Dogen conducted an experiment to find out whether people would eat more or less depending on how obvious the presence of fat in food. They changed the appearance of the products: in the first case, the presence of fat was immediately visible, in the second – it was disguised: tomato soup was submitted first with vegetable oil floating on the surface, and then the oil was mixed with soup; The bread was offered in the form of a sandwich with butter either with oil baked inside. The results were amazing. Participants asked to estimate the number of calories and fat in food. When fat was hidden, they sharply underestimated the content and the other. Then they were offered food and reported that you can eat any. A group that consumed foods with visible fat, the last time. And the one who dealt with hidden fat, continued to eat longer. The key aspect of obesity, which is often overlooked, is that weight gain can be caused by the slightest increase in consumption, if it occurs regularly. Only 100 kcal per day – and you have already gained weight. When the amount of fat in food was not obvious, people ate 10% more, receiving an additional 100 kcal.