Manufactured Deliciousness - Bet You Can't Eat Just One! (By Jennifer Broxterman, MSc, RD)

You know the feeling: One salty crunch turns into 100, and suddenly you’re licking the cheese dust and wondering: What’s wrong with me? 

Even healthy eaters 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 possessed.

Know what I mean?

You show up to a potluck with quinoa salad goals and find yourself inhaling a plate of chips, cookies, and some chocolate-peanut-butter-marshmallow thing that some devil, um friend, made.

Processed foods are scientifically engineered to be irresistible and easy to gobble up in large quantities. If you can’t stop, the chips are doing their job.

Here are 3 strategies to help you find your way back to a peaceful relationship with food.

It’s one thing to know in theory why certain foods are so easy to over-consume, but it’s even more valuable to discover for yourself how food processing, certain ingredient combinations, marketing, and even easy accessibility affect you and your food choices.

1. Get curious about the foods you eat.

We’ve established that processed foods are designed to be easy to eat.

For a food to be “easy to eat”, it has to be:

• broken down easily (less chewing), and
• low volume (doesn’t take up much physical space).

So:

Less chewing + Low volume = More eating

Chewing takes time. The more we have to chew something, the longer it takes us to eat, giving our fullness signals a chance to catch up.

That feeling of “fullness” matters a lot too.

When you eat, your stomach expands. It’s partly through that sensation of pressure that your body knows you’ve had enough. Processed foods deliver a lot of calories without taking up much space, meaning you can eat a lot before you realize you’ve overdone it.

2. Notice the messages you’re getting about food.

Food manufacturers use creative marketing strategies to imply processed foods are healthy. And even if you know they’re not, they have other ways of getting you to buy them.

Grocery stores have found that if they put the produce section first, you’re more likely to purchase processed foods. This is probably because if you’ve already got your cart loaded with spinach, broccoli, and apples, perhaps you’ll feel better about picking up some ice cream, cookies, and crackers, before heading to the checkout line.

Let that sink in: The supermarkets we all shop in several times a month are designed to make you feel better about buying foods that could negatively impact your health goals.

The good news? Simply being aware of this trick can help you bypass it.

The takeaway?

You’ll be more aware of the particular types of marketing you’re susceptible to, which you can use to make more informed food choices.

3. Look for patterns.

We often use food for reasons other than physical nourishment.

For example, if we feel sad, we might reach for a cookie to comfort ourselves. Temporarily, we feel better.

The next time we feel sad, we remember the temporary relief that cookie brought us. So we repeat the ritual. If we continue to repeat this cycle, we may find our arm reaching for the cookie jar every time we feel blue. We’re not even thinking about it at this point; it’s just habit.

Habits are powerful, for better or for worse. They can work for us or against us.

Luckily, we have control over this.

All it takes is a little time and an understanding of how habits get formed.

Take Care Of Your Body Or Your Sickness Will
Author in Source Title

Donald Grandy

Precision Nutrition Certification - Pn1

Sport and Exercise Nutrition Coach

dongrandy@gmail.com