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WFAEats
Welcome to WFAEats — a fun adventure where we explore all things tasty and interesting in the Charlotte food scene. We want to share stories, recipes and culinary escapades and hear about yours!

WFAEats: Keeping It Sweet And Fat

Krispy Kreme doughnuts.
Mark Lee
/
Flickr
Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

In the category of Things That Are Really No Surprise comes a bold new study claiming that humans crave foods that are sweet, fatty, and especially a combination of both. This is not news to those us enjoying a doughnut or a biscuit with jam this morning. Nevertheless, scientists found an interesting tool to use when measuring our desire for these foods: money.  

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It’s one thing to pick a pastry from a tray set in front of you, but it’s another to decide which you would buy. A group of subjects viewed pictures of different foods laden with carbs, fats, or a combination of both. Then researchers allotted the subjects a set amount of imaginary money to “purchase” the foods. People overwhelmingly preferred those that were high in both carbs and fats.

Parents who struggle to get their kids to eat fruit or cheese instead of fries and cookies are familiar with the power of this craving, and how early it can begin. Our brains are wired to seek substances that trigger chemical rewards and feelings of pleasure. Carbs and fats together amplify each other; in science, this is called a “supra-additive” effect.

This leads to a uniquely human problem because foods high in both substances are really quite rare in nature. Those deep-fried and chocolate-frosted foods are exactly the ones that can contribute to heart disease, diabetes, and other serious health ailments.

But it’s not as if we consciously set out to make poor choices that lead to bad outcomes.  

Credit DiFeliceantonio and Coppin et al./Cell Metabolism
This visual abstract shows that foods containing fat and carbohydrate are more reinforcing than equicaloric foods containing primarily fat or carbohydrate. This effect is independent of liking and is reflected by supra-additive responses in the striatum during food valuation. This may be one mechanism driving overconsumption of high-fat/carbohydrate processed foods.

Interestingly, we’re pretty adept at perceiving the calorie content in fats (and to a lesser degree, carbs) separately, but terrible when the two are combined. For example, we can understand that devouring a whole loaf of bread or wheel of Brie will lead to caloric overload, and we can usually stop ourselves before we overeat.

However, it’s much harder to resist a gargantuan cheeseburger with a side of onion rings slathered with ketchup, not simply because they taste good – but because we don’t recognize that their caloric content far exceeds what we need. It’s what’s known as a “food valuation” problem.

This is especially unfair to those of us living in the Carolinas. How can we be expected to forego that Bo-Berry biscuit when we can smell them baking as we drive by Bojangles? How can we possibly pass up a Krispy Kreme doughnut when the “HOT NOW” sign is blazing? Those little loaves of cornbread with honey butter at Mert’s Heart and Soul? All of those amazing barbecue places where the sweetness and smoke just melt into the meat?

Think of it this way: The next time you reach for something full of carbs and fat, you don’t have to scold yourself. You can blame your brain. And you can back it up with science – because when it comes to what we eat, we now have proof that we’re going to put our money where our mouths are. 

Amy Rogers writes WFAEats, a fun adventure where we explore all things tasty and tackle the meatier side of the food scene in and around Charlotte.

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Amy Rogers is the author of Hungry for Home: Stories of Food from Across the Carolinas and Red Pepper Fudge and Blue Ribbon Biscuits. Her writing has also been featured in Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing, the Oxford American, and the Charlotte Observer. She is founding publisher of the award-winning Novello Festival Press. She received a Creative Artist Fellowship from the Arts and Science Council, and was the first person to receive the award for non-fiction writing. Her reporting has also won multiple awards from the N.C. Working Press Association. She has been Writer in Residence at the Wildacres Center, and a program presenter at dozens of events, festivals, arts centers, schools, and other venues. Amy Rogers considers herself “Southern by choice,” and is a food and culture commentator for NPR station WFAE.