You eat less if you eat tasty food?

ramepithecus

Just ran across this article and it seems to mesh with my own personal experience, but I can also imagine others having the opposite experience. What does everyone else think?

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/2/9439049/why-people-overeat

47Jacqueline

Just because a food tastes good doesn't imbue it with characteristics that will cause you to eat more or less of it.

lauraleefaith

An interesting read. Thanks for the reference. I think of France and the foods they eat; one could argue their flavors are potent and possibly fatty yet the populace is healthy.

DeguelloTex

I bet really, really delicious chocolate cake isn't a boon for weight loss.

Sweets1954

I know that when I eat bland tasting food I don't feel satisfied and have a tendency to eat more. I much prefer highly flavored foods, not necessarily spicy, to the overly bland. I also don't like to depend on "drinking" my meals. A smoothie just doesn't cut it.

Sweets1954

I also know that I can be satisfied with a very small serving of desserts or chocolates which don't add much to my daily count rather than gorging on the cheap stuff.

Kalikel

I think that a lot of things go into weight loss for most people. It's not a "Do this one thing" kind of deal. Plus, everyone is different, so different people have different approaches.

Finding ways to make healthy food taste good is something I kind of champion. So many people get caught in the trap of thinking healthy food cannot taste good. I cannot tell you how many times I've read here, "Most of my diet is healthy food, but I save room for things I like." That shouldn't be the case! You don't have to eat junk food to eat food you really enjoy!

Everything got easier when I decided to find ways to make the healthy stuff taste good. It's a HUGE helper for me on my path to health. Helps with weight loss, top.

So, I'm big on eating things that taste really good. But that doesn't mean it has to be expensive and it certainly isn't the only way to lose weight.

DeguelloTex

Also, it kind of flies in the face of all the whining about hyper-palatable foods being an issue for people.

segacs

I know I eat less when I eat more satisfying, higher quality foods. I am happy with one or two squares of really good dark chocolate, but I find myself mindlessly snacking on the high-sugar low quality cookies for ages without feeling as satisfied. So yeah, anecdotally this is true for me.

ramepithecus

Kalikel wrote: »

I think that a lot of things go into weight loss for most people. It's not a "Do this one thing" kind of deal. Plus, everyone is different, so different people have different approaches.

Finding ways to make healthy food taste good is something I kind of champion. So many people get caught in the trap of thinking healthy food cannot taste good. I cannot tell you how many times I've read here, "Most of my diet is healthy food, but I save room for things I like." That shouldn't be the case! You don't have to eat junk food to eat food you really enjoy!

Everything got easier when I decided to find ways to make the healthy stuff taste good. It's a HUGE helper for me on my path to health. Helps with weight loss, top.

So, I'm big on eating things that taste really good. But that doesn't mean it has to be expensive and it certainly isn't the only way to lose weight.

I approve. I'm a big fan of not suffering. Is there a recipe group?

PeachyCarol

That's not really a new theory, though. I wish I could remember when I first heard this, maybe back in the late '80's or early 90's. Back then I think they called it flavor satiety or something like that.

I want to say I remember Weight Watchers talking about it, but my memory is fuzzy on it.

vivmom2014

The better it tastes, the more I want.

suziecue20

There are so many delicious recipes with healthy ingredients out there but unfortunately a lot of people either cant or wont cook proper full meals. I'd give up if I had to rely on frozen 'ready meals', sandwiches, takeaways and junk food in order to lose weight.

Proper meals mean you don't eat so much 'junk'.

zyxst

vivmom2014 wrote: »

The better it tastes, the more I want.

Kalikel

suziecue20 wrote: »

There are so many delicious recipes with healthy ingredients out there but unfortunately a lot of people either cant or wont cook proper full meals. I'd give up if I had to rely on frozen 'ready meals', sandwiches, takeaways and junk food in order to lose weight.

Proper meals mean you don't eat so much 'junk'.

A decent point.

If you're eating lots of veggies, you're going to be really full on waaaaay less calories. So you get to eat A LOT of food.

ramepithecus

Kalikel wrote: »

If you're eating lots of veggies, you're going to be really full on waaaaay less calories. So you get to eat A LOT of food.

This was the big revelation I got from using MFP (I'd never tracked calories at all before). I realized "Whoa! I can eat *all the vegetables* and still have calories left".

Regarding the article itself and what DeguelloTex said about it flying in face of conventional wisdom about hyper-palatable food leading to overeating: I wonder if there is a distinction that needs to be made between 'palatable' and 'flavorful'. The article talks about feeling more full after eating spicy soup, but I don't see a whole lot of people complaining that they went on a binge and ate 6000 calories of Thai curry. It's more likely something like crackers or mac and cheese or cookies or things that, to me, don't have a very strong flavor to them.

I love chocolate, but if I've got some 80% dark chocolate, I don't eat that much of it at once. Turn me loose on milk chocolate/chocolate cake and now I can put away some serious calories.

middlehaitch

I could live off tapas and mezza, scrumptious tasty little morsels that they are. Same with tasters of really good deserts.
Flavour tops palatable in my books any day. There is a difference in satiety.

Cheers, h.

Francl27

Well, I'll eat less if my meal is more satisfying, personally. If I have a bland chicken breast and bland veggies, I'm more likely to have more food to feel satisfied... If I make a delicious lunch (like stuffed peppers, for example, which is similar in calories), I'm less likely to have dessert because I'll be satisfied.

So yeah, I tend to agree with the article. Thinking of their example of cottage cheese and chocolate mousse... if you want chocolate mousse, but eat cottage cheese instead, you're still likely to eat the chocolate mousse afterwards.. at least I know I would be! But if I went straight for the mousse, I'd be satisfied and wouldn't end up eating both.

About the spicy soup, spicy food totally kills my appetite because I swear the taste lingers in my mouth for hours... so probably not the best example, IMO.

zyxst

ramepithecus wrote: »

Kalikel wrote: »

If you're eating lots of veggies, you're going to be really full on waaaaay less calories. So you get to eat A LOT of food.

This was the big revelation I got from using MFP (I'd never tracked calories at all before). I realized "Whoa! I can eat *all the vegetables* and still have calories left".

Regarding the article itself and what DeguelloTex said about it flying in face of conventional wisdom about hyper-palatable food leading to overeating: I wonder if there is a distinction that needs to be made between 'palatable' and 'flavorful'. The article talks about feeling more full after eating spicy soup, but I don't see a whole lot of people complaining that they went on a binge and ate 6000 calories of Thai curry. It's more likely something like crackers or mac and cheese or cookies or things that, to me, don't have a very strong flavor to them.

I love chocolate, but if I've got some 80% dark chocolate, I don't eat that much of it at once. Turn me loose on milk chocolate/chocolate cake and now I can put away some serious calories.

A staple of my diet for years was jalapeno cheddar cheese dip. Nice and spicy and I ate 2-3 cans (18 - 27 oz) a day. You can overeat on anything. Tastes are different.

kommodevaran

Nothing new there, or rather, nothing very new. "More-ish foods", "food without brakes", "loving food that loves us back", it has been discussed, but not enough. Fulfulling and nutrient-rich food tastes good and satisfies; hyperpalatable, nutritionally void predigested food-like substances stimulate tastebuds too much and create a hunger for more; bland food fills us up but leaves us hungry for needed pleasure associated with eating. It's all about finding the balance, and natural food is easiest to manage that - for many of us, at least.

Mark Schatzker (and I) came to the same conclusion this spring.

Timelordlady85

zyxst wrote: »

vivmom2014 wrote: »

The better it tastes, the more I want.

+1

segacs

ramepithecus wrote: »

I love chocolate, but if I've got some 80% dark chocolate, I don't eat that much of it at once. Turn me loose on milk chocolate/chocolate cake and now I can put away some serious calories.

Same here. Both taste good, but they're different kinds of good. I don't know how to describe it other than to say that quality food is more densely satisfying in small quantities.

lemurcat12

Francl27 wrote: »

Well, I'll eat less if my meal is more satisfying, personally. If I have a bland chicken breast and bland veggies, I'm more likely to have more food to feel satisfied... If I make a delicious lunch (like stuffed peppers, for example, which is similar in calories), I'm less likely to have dessert because I'll be satisfied.

I'm not likely to eat more at a meal, but I am more likely to decide to eat stuff between meals or simply get bored of my way of eating if I don't make it taste good. One thing that's made losing weight easy for me is that when I decided to figure out how to do it back in '03, constructing a way of eating that would be tasty as well as reasonable in calories was important to me -- and mostly it meant eating like I did growing up, but cooked better and with more/different herbs and spices and peppers.

I do think it's sad when people think you have to eat "diet food" to lose weight.

However (re Kalikel's post above), when I say eat mostly nutrient dense foods and whatever you like for extras, I certainly never mean to imply that nutrient dense foods aren't tasty. That I look forward to my meals is one reason it's easy to avoid eating between meals, for me.