Flavor = Nutrition
Here's how Ultra-Processed Food hacked us
The best way to describe how Ultra-Processed Food (UPF) hacked us, and forced us to overeat Pringles and Diet Coke
Here it is:
Flavor is nature’s language of nutrition.
It’s how we evolved, the best tasting foods were always the best for us.
Think of a peach tree or a honeycomb stash or a juicy moose steak (Umami flavor). Those all give us nutrition – amino acids, vitamins, minerals.
We didn’t have labels in the forest or the jungle. We didn’t know calories. It was all TASTE.
That’s because the best taste = the best nutrients for us.
Taste used to tell us: “eat more.” It was not a problem to overeat good-tasting food found in nature, because it was giving us vital nutrients. In fact, there was no such thing as “overeating” — at least not the way we think of it today. In nature, once we consumed enough nutrients, our brains sent the “shutoff signal” to stop eating the delicious honeycomb.
In nature, “This is TASTY = This is GOOD FOR US!!!”
NOW, the food that tastes the BEST is the WORST for us. UPF separates taste/flavor from nutrition and exploits it! McDonalds tastes good, Pringles has high Umami, but good tasting food is now what kills us.
UPF is 100% Taste and 0% Nutrition.
Brilliant example: a can of Coke is giving us 9 teaspoons of sugar just to keep us drinking it, because the body wants calories linked to flavor. In a study of rats and humans, they were given sweet-flavored things, but only the one with carbs did they want more of.
Coke doesn’t want to sell us 9 teaspoons of sugar per se — they just want to sell us whatever creates the “MORE” effect, and they know that more sugar makes the body want it more. So they’re maximizing the most amount of sugar just to deliver liquid in exchange for our money (and our health).
-Pringles does the same as Coke, but with Umami flavor. It makes your body think “alright, here is a savory fermented fish or a cooked beef risotto, with nutrition” -- but then it’s only bleached potato starch, with zero nutrition, and now the brain signals are turned on because of all that fatty salty flavor, and the brain signals say go back for more: “Go get the nutrition, it must be there, because the flavor is there” -- So Eat More. EAT MORE PRINGLES dummy! Another swig of Diet Coke for the calorie. Another Pringle for the beef risotto amino acids. Etc.
It’s science. We’re not “choosing” to eat another pringle or take another swig of soda. Our brain is forcing us to do it.
And does the UPF industry know all this??
They DESIGNED it that way!!!!
SUMMARY: Whether it’s diet soda that’s sweet but no calories, or high calories like Pringles but no nutrition, the body does not send in the “stop eating” signal — because it’s saying: “where’s my nutrition? This tastes very good indeed, so it must have what I need, but I’m not getting it. So, please keep eating it Body; you’re not done eating it until I get my nutrition”—which NEVER comes . . . So you keep eating . . . And eating . . . And eating . . .
Learn more with the eye-opening book, Ultra-Processed People