Why you can’t just have one

Are there certain foods that you just can’t stop eating? Even when you are full?

We know, and studies have proven, that foods with sugar, fat, and salt highjack the same parts of our brain as certain drugs. Making it harder to eat just one or stop when we are full.

One problem with previously understanding how these foods affect our health and our weight is that manufacturers wouldn’t share the formulas that make these foods so irresistible.

These hyper-palatable foods have now been studied without the help of food manufacturers. Researchers have broken down into their magic ingredients to reveal how these foods are hard to resist.

The hyper-palatable triad

Three US researchers have broken down the ingredients in the US Food Database of 7,757 foods.

What did they find?

That hyper-palatable food fell into three clusters.

Fat and sodium, for example, pizza and dips, with at least 25% of their calories from fat and 0.3% from sodium.

Fat and simple sugars, foods like doughnuts and cookies. These foods had 20% of their calories from fat and 20% of their calories from simple sugars.

Carbohydrates and salt, including foods like potato chips and buttered popcorn. These foods had 40% of their calories from carbohydrates and 0.25 from sodium.

And some surprising findings

After applying their definition of hyper-palatable foods on the Food and Nutrient Database for Dietary Studies (this is based on what Americans report eating) the researchers also found –

60% of the food consumed fell into one of the categories.

With 70% in the fat and sodium category and 25% in the fat/simple sugar category.

They also found that unprocessed foods like fruits and vegetables were not categorized as hyper-palatable.

Eat real food.

The researchers suggest adding a new label to hyper-palatable foods or limiting certain ingredient combinations to make it easier for people to avoid these foods.

They also recommend eating whole, unprocessed foods, with very few additional ingredients to make better food decisions.

Change your mind, change your health,

Shayla