Flavors are killing us. Specifically added flavors in processed foods and missing flavors in factory farm-produced foods. It turns out that there is a link between taste and nutrition and our industrial-gastronomic system has short circuited that connection. Flavors in foods signal our bodies that certain nutrients are headed toward the stomach. By adding artificial and "natural" flavors to our foods we trick our bodies into thinking that we are eating nutritious food. When the promised nutrients do not arrive in our gut (which has taste receptors!) the gut tells the mouth to keep eating. Thus we end up eating the entire bag of Doritos, or Oreos, or whatever processed food we are eating. So why add flavors? Because modern industrial farming favors size and appearance over flavor and nutrition. Everything from chickens to tomatoes are now much blander-- and thus less nutritious-- than they were 100 years ago. Blander and less nutritious leads to more overeating.
This book was fascinating, informative, and alarming. We are eating more and getting less out of what we eat. Flavor science has co-opted our body's system for getting the nutrients we need and the result is a sicker and fatter population. Read this and you will never look at a chicken nugget the same way.
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