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Sweet Taste Sense may cause Weight Problem
Taste Sensations
After watching a documentary about the
evolution of our taste buds it got me thinking about how our senses may be
contributing towards the obesity epidemic. The documentary explained that
the 5 basic senses evolved to help humans stand a better chance of surviving
when foraging for food.
The five senses are:
1. Sour
2. Bitter
3. Savoury
4. Salt
5. Sweet
The first three senses don’t seem to be involved with the process of weight
gain but let’s briefly discuss their role. For many people the sour
sensation can be an unpleasant experience. It is also a good sign that a
food may have gone rotten so it could harbour harmful bacteria. The bitter
sense is another protective taste; it was a good sign that plants that may
contain poison. Both these senses would help our ancestors avoid eating any
potentially dangerous foods.
The savoury sense helped our ancestors to detect quality protein in foods.
Protein is essential for healthy growth and maintenance of body tissues.
Back in primitive times protein was scarce, thus a savoury taste evolved to
be pleasant and drive humans to eat foods that contain the protein we needed
for survival.
The salt sense also developed a nice, distinctive taste to drive humans to
seek out foods which contained salt. Salt is essential for the correct
function of our brain and nervous system. Most basic foods which made up a
large portion of the diet in primitive times contained little salt. Thus
sensing salt in food was beneficial in order to obtain enough for human
needs. The problem now is that salt is plentiful, as it is added to a huge
amount of foods and products. Today salt intake in the western world is far
too high, and this alone contributes a little to weight as it causes the
body to hold more water. Often people who decide to eat less food will lose
weight because there is a natural reduction in salt intake; they lose water
and some fat.
Learn more about sodium intake and weight
gains
The sweet taste and the obesity epidemic
Finally the sweet sense helped humans to detect the small amounts of sugar
in food. Energy is the most important nutrient for human survival, and
carbohydrates (sugars) are the preferred energy source. Once sugar was
detected this sensation may have driven humans to eat more food in order to
obtain a greater amount of energy for survival. In primitive times food was
too scarce for humans to consume too much energy, for this reason body
weight was controlled naturally.
However today food is plentiful, it’s everywhere we go and most foods have
some added sugar. If people still have a basic instinct to obtain energy in
the form of sugar, then many of the foods available could become potentially
addictive. In fact many natural, high carb foods such as potatoes, grains,
oats and wheat are often blamed as “fattening foods”. These foods don’t
contain lots of fat but many products made from these basic foods have added
sugars and salt, possibly making them highly addictive to people with a
sensitive sweet taste (sweet tooth).
The sweet sensation that evolved to help humans stand a better chance of
survival could be the main reason for the obesity epidemic in society today.
I believed the way to control sugar intake was to trick my taste buds to
help me lose weight. I tried to sensitize my sweet taste buds so only a
little sugar tasted very sweet thus I consumed less sugar.
Read how I reduced sugar intake
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