Before eating potato chips, you may have promised to eat only one piece of potato chips. But in reality, you devour more than one piece and even spend it at once.
A study in Frontiers in Psychology, researchers let mice choose three different foods. Standard food, a mixture of fat and carbohydrates, or potato chips. Rodents are much more like potato chips, than the other two choices.
Potato chips are best known for two things, salt and fat. Research shows that eating salt triggers the release of dopamine, a chemical messenger that controls the brain's pleasure center. As soon as the brain gets the first, it will start to crave more.
"But when we add salt to the food, suddenly the control disappears," said study author Russel Keast, PhD, professor of sensory science at Deakin University, as quoted from the Reader's Digest page on Tuesday (7/8).
In one study in Australia, 48 adults could eat as much as they wanted for four different lunches. Food pasta looks basically the same except for salt and fat. The sauce is low in fat / low in salt, low in fat / high in salt, high in fat / low in salt, or high in fat / high in salt, and participants try each one for four weeks.
No matter how much fat in food, volunteers eat 11 percent more calories and food when the sauce is extra salty, according to results in The Journal of Nutrition. With a high-fat sauce, participants consume 60 percent more calories, but not necessarily there is additional food in terms of weight. Fat itself contains high calories, so volunteers consume more calories with the same amount of food.
Normally fat helps make food more satisfying. When food is low in salt, it's easy to practice self-control rather than overeating, says the study authors. So, fatty chips that don't have extra salt will be one thing. After you add salt to the equation, your brain wants as much sodium and dopamine as possible.
