Tasty Tricks: How Foods, By Design, Are Hard to Resist

appetite binge cravings emotional eating food healthy eating overeating snacking Jan 19, 2023

Why is it so hard to take one bite and stop? It's not you. It's the food. Processed foods keep all of us eating and wanting more by design with unstoppable taste, flavor, and variety, stimulating us so we can't stop eating.

Tasty Tricks

Taste is the first place our brain registers stimulation and flavor. So that's why food manufacturers know to develop substances stimulating the tongue and the brain. And they constantly formulate new ways to amplify the power of what we taste.

Sweet is the one "taste" that humans will instantly accept, like, and approve of every time. And that's because we all have sweet-receptor portions on our tongues that activate the brain's dopamine or pleasure center.

Sticky Flavor

When the flavor sticks, it persists and keeps working to keep us wanting to eat more. So food manufacturers work to ensure the taste and the flavor stimulation stay adhered to the tongue.

These sticky coatings are mostly dust or powder, coating the exterior of crackers and potato chips, and include stimulating substances like sugar, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and yeast.

Sugar is sticky and transferable naturally. By design, the formula can more easily stick to your tongue, lips, and fingers whenever sugar or a sweet substitute is in the mix. And it's the stickiness that allows the flavor and stimulation to linger, which drives you to keep eating.

"Betcha Can't Eat Just One!"

Lay's potato chips started to use the slogan, "Betcha can't eat just one," in 2013. Now, almost a decade later, scientists know that when you do choose to indulge in foods that contain these stimulates, by design, you can't eat "just one."

Once you touch or taste just one bite of these powdered, processed food products, you won't be able to stop at just one because you can't lick your fingers or wipe them off your teeth and tongue. The flavor coating must be washed off your lips and fingers and brushed off your teeth and tongue.

Overconsumption of most processed foods isn't directly the consumer's problem. More consumers need to be aware of how powerful these stimulants are and how determined food manufacturers are to get us to stick with them and keep eating!

A Reliable Solution

Avoid these flavor triggers by reading the ingredients list, and remember that sugar uses more than 70 aliases! So that's why I always read the list of ingredients. When indulging in potato chips, I look for just three ingredients: potatoes, oil, and salt. Then I can enjoy the chips and stay in control to decide when to stop eating.

What I Buy

"What to Buy" Potato Chips and Tortilla Chips are two "real-life strategies" videos available to $5 Subscribers and all Members.

Pre-Popped Popcorn and other snack options are available to Ovvia Members in the Member's Resource Guide.

Learn More

Listen to my podcast episode, "Why You Can't Stop Eating," which is available to everyone for free! Also, read all prior blog posts here. Read "Constantly Hungry & Fighting Cravings."

Ovvia Members can learn more in the Video Library and watch all three videos in the "Sugar Sabotage" section. In the "Cravings" section, learn about starch and sugar cravings, what causes them, and how to overcome them. Also, watch the two videos on Addiction, where you can learn about addictive behaviors and substances and how to overcome them.