PHOTOGRAPHY: THINKSTOCKeat
How many times a day do you either
think about food, read about food or
pore over virtual food? Each instance
is helping to decide your real-life diet.
Words: Stephanie OsfieldON FOOD PORN
Your Brain
ed by a triple Belgian brownie or
y thread of melted camembert. Or
y’ that got you?
onses to food porn are not unlike
you see a cute puppy or child. In
uld be a thing.
“Food porn taps in to our primal ‘me want’ brain,”
says Precision Nutrition’s John Berardi. “It presents
offerings where everything is better than reality. It puts
our culinary experience into a shiny, visually appealing,
easily consumed fantasy package that creates desire.”
Research shows that just imagining a chocolate bar or
burger can activate salivation, which is the body’s way of
preparing to eat.
If you’re feeling fragile, it’s even worse.
Research by Cornell University’s food scientists
reveals how a person’s emotional state – particularly in
sports – affects f lavour perception. People in negative
emotional states tend to crave sweets more than those in
a positive frame of mind according to a study published
in journal Appetite.
Emotions inf luenced the perception of sweet, salty,
bitter, sour and umami (savoury) tastes according to
study co-author Robin Dando, an assistant professor
of food science at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and
Life Sciences.
“Emotional manipulations in the form of pleasantly
or unpleasantly perceived real-life events can inf luence
the perception of taste, driving the acceptability of
foods,” said Dando.
He found that everyday emotional nuances change our
willingness to contemplate eating – and indeed eat – foods
we perceive as being less pleasurable. In negative affective
states, less pleasurable foods lose even more appeal while
hedonically pleasing foods (hello, sticky date pudding)
remain pleasurable.oe
res
w hen
y ho