Are you F.A.T??? Fooled And Trusting

Why is it that there is so much obesity everywhere?? You turn the TV on and all you hear is everyone is fat. Everyone is overeating. Let’s have a sugar tax. Tax the fat people. Tax the fat people’s health care. It is literally turning into a witch hunt.  Next year they’re going to bring back dunking. It isn’t going to be for finding witches they are going to dunk everyone who looks fat. If you sink and drown you’re not fat and if you float you’re fat!!!! I wonder if they are going to burn the fat people!!!

The thing is the powers that be are blaming Joe Public for the obesity epidemic. It’s your fault you are fat. You just eat too much. For god’s sake they will be putting combination locks on fridges soon. Or timers where fridges are open for 10 minutes a day. But actually nobody ever really blames the real culprits.  It’s not Joe Public, it is the food manufacturers and big businesses’ fault because the food is designed to make you want to eat and eat.  The powers that be know this but it is not in their interest to stop it. You know that feeling: One Crunchy crunch turns into 10 and then the whole packet. Suddenly you’re licking the cheese dust off the packet and your fingers. My god they even show it in the advert. But we blame ourselves because we believe what we are told and we wonder what’s wrong with me? 

But actually, it’s perfectly normal to feel like you can’t stop over eating certain things. Food is now made to be hyperpalatable, creating a modern-day food crisis — one that’s leaving us feeling sick, out of control, and constantly craving more. Actually, it’s making us buy, buy, buy!!!

Next time you are out walking just do a bit of people watching and you’ll be able to see how well these food manufacturers are doing their job. 

But, before going into full-fledged self-loathing and I’m a failure mode, think about this.

All processed foods are scientifically engineered to be irresistible and make you want more. They’re easy to scoff down in large quantities. If you can’t stop eating, the engineers have done their job. In fact, someone at has probably got a big fat (obese) pay rise for the recipe, especially if it is linked to profit sharing.

Making some very big fat cats indeed.

I’m going to explain exactly how junk food is designed to make us respond with compulsive, manic, gotta-have-more snack sessions.

It doesn’t matter how healthy we eat we still feel out of control around food sometimes. Even if we value nutrition and want to take care of ourselves, some foods can make us feel… kinda food possessed.

You show up to work with your salad and find yourself inhaling crisps or a plate full cookies or doughnuts a colleague has brought in.

Have you ever reached into the freezer to have one mini ice cream and suddenly you’re eating as mini as you can??  To the point where you eat so many you start to feel sick.

You just want a small bag of french fries, but that oh so irresistible smell, you find yourself going massive with the chips and asking if there’s a quadruple burger with cheese with a side of diet onion rings and a quart of full fat coke.

Even with the best intentions, the pull of certain foods is so strong that it can leave us feeling powerless.

If you’ve felt this, you’re not alone, just people watch the next time you are out and about (You’re not just the only one who is broken).

Certain foods are actually designed to make us overeat.

The truth is there’s a whole industry dedicated to creating food that’s hyperpalatable — food that’s so tasty it’s nearly irresistible.

Actually you are not broken at all. Your body and brain are responding exactly as they’re supposed to. It’s supposed to feel almost unnatural to stop eating these foods!

These are the processed foods. We become addicted to them.

Processed foods are foods that have been modified by the manufacturers and the food producers, from their original, whole-food form in order to change their flavour, texture, or shelf-life. Often, they’re altered so that they hit as many pleasure centers as possible — from our brains to our mouths to our bellies.

These foods are immediately gratifying, fun to eat, and easy to over-consume quickly (and more often than not cheap!!!).

Processed foods will also look and feel different from their whole food counterparts, depending on the degree that they’re processed.

Boiled and eaten off the cob corn is pale yellow, fibrous, but chewy and delicious.  But have you ever noticed that it is quite difficult to digest often coming out the way it goes in!!!

But corn that’s processed — ground into a dust and shaped into a flat disk — turns into a tortilla chip. A tortilla has a nice corny flavor and a soft with no fiber that makes it easy to eat and digest. Then make cute little triangles and fry them add flavouring and you’ve got a snack you can eat by the pound.

Did you know that multiple flavours at once are irresistible!!!

If there’s a party in your mouth, you can guarantee that at least two out of three of the following guests will be there:

• Sugar

• Fat

• Salt

The flavours — the sweetness of sugar, the luxurious mouthfeel of fat, and the sharp savory of salt — are favorites among those of us with mouths.

When you combine these flavors, they become ultra-delicious and hard-to-resist. This is called stimuli stacking. Manufacturers know this.

• The satisfying combination of fat and salt, found in crisps, fries, nachos, cheesy things, etc. Delicious

• The comforting combination of fat and sugar, found in baked goods, fudge, ice cream, cookies, chocolate, etc. Heaven

• The irresistible combination of all three— a salted chocolate brownie, or caramel corn with candied nuts, or fries with ketchup! Oh boy!!

Food manufacturers know: When it comes to encouraging people to overeat, two flavours are better than one.

There is a specific “stimuli stacking” formula that the food industry uses to create hyperpalatable food.

They call it “The Big 5.”

Foods that fulfill “The Big 5” are:

• Calorie dense, usually high in sugar and/or fat.

• Intensely flavored — the food must deliver strong flavor hits.

• Immediately delicious - with a love-at-first bite.

• Easy to eat — no effortful chewing needed! No energy wasting

• “Melted” down easily — the food almost dissolves in your mouth, thus easy to eat quickly and overconsume.

When these five factors exist in one food, you get a product that’s practically irresistible.

When processed food manufacturers evaluate a prospective food product, the “irresistibility” (the extent to which a person can’t stop eating a food) is more important even than taste!

Just think about the ease of eating whole foods versus processed foods:

Whole foods, real food requires about 25 chews per mouthful, which means that you have to slow down. When we eat real meat, fruit and vegetables you slow down, your satiety signals (when you are full) keep pace with your eating and have a chance to tell you when you’ve had enough.

Processed food manufacturers, on the other hand, aim for food products to be broken down in 10 chews or less per mouthful. That means the intense, flavourful, crazy-delicious experience is over quickly, and you’re left wanting more.  Your fast food really is fast. Open the box and it is gone, so much so you need another one or maybe two.

I’m sure you remember a time at some point where you have taken a mouthful of meat only to find that you are unable to swallow it. No matter how much you chew it just goes round and round. Ten minutes later you are trying to find a way of getting rid of that pesky chewed up piece of meat. Do you just spit it out on your plate, spit it into a tissue or just swallow it and risk choking?? If every mouth took this long eating food would take too long and you’d get bored.

Did you know that restaurants use these “ease of eating” tactics, too?  If you look at the menus of most of the pubs and restaurants their menus are almost identical. They might just as well serve up baby food. Food that we don’t really need to chew it almost dissolves in the mouth.  All the dishes are designed to incorporate the Big 5.

One trick is to make chicken easier to eat.  Chicken breast is injected with a highly flavoured sauce through hundreds of tiny needles. This results in a chicken breast with intense flavour hits, but almost as important it also tenderizes the chicken so it requires less chewing.

 

So what does that mean???

We need to be more aware of the food we are eating.  It’s tempting to buy that jumbo bag of crisps or a multi buy because it’s such a good deal.

But remember: Real value isn’t about price or quantity so much as it is about quality.

Quality foods are nutrient-dense and minimally-processed. They are foods that you like, and make sense for you and your budget.  

Quality foods may take a little more preparation and be a little more expensive up-front, but in the long run, they’re the real deal, and have a lower “health fat tax” to pay later in life.

We can almost feel “high” when we eat processed foods. Whole foods, on the other hand, are more subtle in flavor and require a bit more effort to chew and digest. Instead of feeling high, whole foods just make us feel nourished and content.

But I want you to think about what you are eating and don’t be F.A.T.

Fooled And Trusting. That is what will happen you will be fat, because the food manufacturers really don’t have your best interests at heart they just want to make money. The more you eat the more you spend. Yay big Fat Cats!!!!