The Taste for Change

Right as the  doors slid open, a cannon of cold air delivered instant comfort from the steamy New York City summer streets. Aisles overflown and lines stretched beyond their natural limits, but this is just standard procedure when millions of New Yorker’s race for lunch. A plate from the salad bar with a piece of fruit accompanied me to checkout, here the true test begun. The Line. Otherwise known as my daily psychological torture. Five minutes of slowly inching past snacks, pastries, cookies, chips, candy and every other piece of edible utopia. In a cravings meets will-power showdown, either “hold on for dear life” and march on through or say Fuck it and succumb to the temptation. I almost feel like stores know that humans have some sort of weakness to theses indulging items and place them there on purpose…. Nah, I must be over thinking  it. But wouldn’t it be awesome to stand on a checkout line and not have to participate in a  mental tug-of-war everyday… Wouldn’t it…

Your Cravings

Hunger and Cravings do not have the connection that you may expect. They actually stimulate totally separate parts of our brains. When our bodies need nourishment there’s a shift in hormonal balance, specifically, a hormone called Ghrelin becomes prevalent, signaling the brain (hypothalamus) that it’s time to eat (1). Cravings however, are the psychological juggernaut that stimulate the reward center of the brain, releasing that ever so addictive “feel good” neurotransmitter “dopamine”.  Hunger is mainly physiological, but when your hungry, cravings can play a role in what you choose for nourishment, so there is some crossover.

Our reward circuitry exists to make us feel good when we participate in activities that are important for survival, such as eating, drinking, and sex.  Up until the last 200 years, high fat/high sugar foods were non-existent.  Instant availability of these naturally rare foods creates a physiological positive feedback loop, rewarding us with dopamine when we indulge. Our body processes it the following way: We chose nourishment with  two key macronutrients, that’s good for survival, thus release dopamine so we do it again!  For an extra twist, our microbiome, composed of  three trillion microorganisms, needs to be nourished as well. Studies have shown that they too have a say in what we crave (2).  The gut is, in fact the origin of the majority of dopamine our body produces.

Finally, Emotion! Food and feelings pretty much go hand-in-hand, bringing us full circle to present-day happy, sad, stressed, depressed, angry, bored (did I miss anything?) eating.  During an emotional event (and humans are pretty good at having them) we crave whatever will give us our dopamine fix, it could be exercise, meditation, drugs, but many times it’s Food. We reach for those high fat/high sugar treats, sealed in that little plastic wrapper and let the “reward center” stimulation begin.

But What if we could crave health…

Your Taste Buddies

It may be surprising, but your real best friends are actually your taste buds. Think about it, they have the ability to bring you instant joy one minute, and save your life the next. Your crew from college is cool, but not that cool. Today we have the luxury of “food on demand“, its nutritional stats, and recipes out the wazoo. But circa 100,000 (or 10,000 for that matter) years ago our senses (taste, touch, sight, smell & sound) we’re our survival mechanism.  And when prospective food passed the initial review, it was put the the final test in our mouths, here the five qualities of taste would make the final decision:

• Sweet
• Sour
• Salty
• Bitter
• Savory

A bitter or sour taste was an indication of poisonous inedible plants or of rotting protein-rich food. The tastes sweet and salty, on the other hand, are often a sign of food rich in nutrients(3). In today’s information age, we’ve completed most of the heavy lifting around identifying “poisonous” and  “nutritious” foods. We’ve also created some problems of our own. The Average adult has between 2,000-4,000 taste buds, half of which have the ability to process all five qualities (listed above) while the other half is limited to an individual quality(2). This interpretation of food, once it hits our tongue, provides the final piece of information to complete our tasting experience, as a result we either devour what’s left or spit it out with conviction.

The current-day conundrum we face is – The best tasting foods are slowly killing us…. But what if we could change that…

Rework your Taste

I used to cave-in on that check-out line at least twice a week, on the days will-power would win, I’d have the peanut butter pretzels in the office pantry calling my name by 3pm. This constant internal debate, a waste of precious brain CPU , will continue day-in and day-out, until one of two things happens:

1. You decided to alter your lifestyle, beginning to treat your body as the prized asset it is
2. Health issues arise and you are forced to make a decision between the “same old ways” or “change for the better”

Hopefully this will help you willingly choose the first! Research into the topics have show that we can,  in-fact alter our taste-buds and overcome our cravings. You may even begin to crave (dare I say it) healthy food… Entertain these two studies:

A controlled study in adults looked into the effects of a sodium restricted diet on participants. After a few weeks, the participants in the low sodium group actually preferred soup with less salt, claiming it tasted better compared to the control group who kept piling it on (4).

In a Tufts University  study, researchers tested the brain’s reward system in 13 overweight and obese men and women. Eight were in a program which emphasized behavior change education with high-fiber, low-glycemic menu plans. The remaining five served as a control group. After six months, brain scans from participants in the weight-loss program  showed increased sensitivity to images of healthy, lower-calorie foods, indicating an increased reward and enjoyment of healthier food “cues.” as well as decreased sensitivity to images of unhealthy higher-calorie foods(5).

You mean to tell me, by switching over to a healthy diet comprised of real whole foods, and ditching our highly processed, chemical derived ways of western society,  we can alter our taste and cravings. The only sacrifice being a few weeks of the sugar sweats, for a life of improved health! Bringing  truth to the theory – The healthier you eat, the more you’ll Crave Health!

I used to pick up a big supersized butterfingers (my mouth just started watering typing that) every-other day on my walk home from work. I’d spend the better part of the walk telling myself I wasn’t stopping in the 7-11 right before my apartment, and as I strolled out those orange and green striped doors with my butterfingers I’d say “OK, but not tomorrow“. It took a month (or two) of uncomfort, along with a new found love for homemade frozen smoothies, but the craving disappeared.

Make the Change, Trust the Process…

No One Ever Regrets Getting Healthy…