Calories are delicious

July 23, 2009 11:35 AM

The Neuroscience of McGriddles:Evolutionary biology offers hypotheses about why we enjoy eating. "When you eat at McDonald's, a big part of the pleasure comes from the fact that the food is sustenance, fuel, energy. Even mediocre food is a little rewarding."
posted by silby (82 comments total)

Linked by my SO, who suggests that my huge head is the cause of me being hungry all the time.
posted by silby at 11:36 AM on July 23

How many McGriddles do you think Grimace eats every morning? He's like a giant head with legs attached, so I'll bet it's a lot.
posted by dortmunder at 11:47 AM on July 23 [1 favorite]

So what you're saying here is that IHOP and Denny's are in an arms race to reach the pinnacle of dietary science?

also that jerk mentioned funnel cakes and i haven't had one of those in so long i am totally going to be craving that all day.
posted by Saydur at 11:49 AM on July 23

From today's "Bacon as a Weapon of Mass Destruction:"

...Take the McGriddle: It starts with a “cake” of refined wheat flour (essentially a sugar), pumped with vegetable shortening, three kinds of sugar and salt. This cradles an egg, cheese and bacon topped by another cake. Thus, the McGriddle, from the bottom up, is fat, salt, sugar, fat and salt in the egg, then fat and salt in the cheese, fat and salt in the bacon, finished off with fat, salt and sugar. And this doesn’t indicate how highly processed the sandwich is. McDonald’s bacon, a presumably simple product, lists 18 separate ingredients, many of them used multiple times.

Yum.
posted by chelseagirl at 11:51 AM on July 23 [3 favorites]

IHOP and Denny's are in NO sort of race. IHOP is second tier greasy breakfast food, and Denny's is like 25th tier, after just eating Crisco from a jar. IHOP is second tier, of course, because of Waffle House.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 11:52 AM on July 23 [4 favorites]

Let's imagine, for instance, that some genius invented a reduced calorie bacon product that tasted exactly like bacon, except it had 50 percent fewer calories. It would obviously be a great day for civilization. But this research suggests that such a pseudo-bacon product, even though it tasted identical to real bacon, would actually give us much less pleasure. Why? Because it made us less fat. Because energy is inherently delicious. Because we are programmed to enjoy calories.

Fuck it.

*goes off diet*
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:52 AM on July 23 [3 favorites]

How many McGriddles do you think Grimace eats every morning?

Zero. Grimace exists to drink McDonald's shake products, hence his name, from the thickness of trying to pull the goo through the straw and the subsequent ice-cream-headache pain which will accompany any such thing.

Early Birdie. She's the character who eats the breakfasts.
posted by hippybear at 11:55 AM on July 23 [10 favorites]

Because we are programmed to enjoy calories.

But... Coke Zero? I like it.
posted by GuyZero at 11:56 AM on July 23

Grimace exists to drink McDonald's shake products,

That explains why he's so fat.
posted by dortmunder at 11:56 AM on July 23

I will admit to finding McGriddles addicting, I guess I feel....better?...about it. They'll still kill me, though.

Possibly sugar-coated bacon would be a simpler way to get the same rush. Has that turned up at a state fair yet? I bet sooner or later it will.
posted by emjaybee at 11:58 AM on July 23 [1 favorite]

David Kessler has a neat book about some of this same stuff called The End of Overeating.

I dunno, Bulge--Denny's has that rock-star breakfast thing, and it pretty much horrifies me. If past experience is any guide, horrifying guys like me is pretty much the royal road to the palace of capitalist success.
posted by box at 11:59 AM on July 23

Let's imagine, for instance, that some genius invented a reduced calorie bacon product that tasted exactly like bacon, except it had 50 percent fewer calories.

Thankfully, that's not the be-all and end-all of strategies to fight the obesity epidemic.
posted by gurple at 12:00 PM on July 23

Bulgaroktonos, I agree. My wife and I refer to it as La Maison du Ouaffel. Them 'shbrowns are the best.
posted by grubi at 12:01 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

But... Coke Zero? I like it.

Yeah, but if you want it to be really satisfying, you gotta stir about half a cup of chopped ham into that.
posted by Greg Nog at 12:09 PM on July 23 [6 favorites]

Possibly sugar-coated bacon would be a simpler way to get the same rush. Has that turned up at a state fair yet? I bet sooner or later it will.

Come on up to the Minnesota State Fair next month:

Food officials are introducing Pig Lickers [...] and Big Fat Bacon.
There was some hesitation about allowing something called Pig Lickers to be sold at the fair. But Charlie Torgerson, who co-owns several Famous Dave’s Franchises, says the chocolate-covered bacon decorated with some sea salt is the best meat out there.

If you want the bacon but not the chocolate, you might try the Big Fat Bacon. It’s one-third pound of bacon, fried and caramelized with maple syrup. It’s served on a stick.

posted by ALongDecember at 12:10 PM on July 23 [5 favorites]

grubi, wow, my wife actually tends to say Casa de Waffle. Still, I'm sure we're not married to the same person. Mostly sure, anyway.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:11 PM on July 23

Possibly sugar-coated bacon would be a simpler way to get the same rush. Has that turned up at a state fair yet?

relevant #mefi10nola link
posted by Greg Nog at 12:12 PM on July 23 [2 favorites]

This is not the whole story.

When I realized I was pre-diabetic I went on a radically low carb diet to keep my blood sugar below 140 mg/dl all the time; it was regularly spiking to 180-200 after meals, and taking this new precaution made a huge improvement in my health even though I'm not limiting the amount I eat and I am eating lots of fat to make up for the fact that I'm hardly eating any carbohydrates at all.

For the first couple of weeks I felt the strong cravings you can imagine for my old favorite foods, but then my appetite completely changed. I found that not only could I stare down a donut, I really had no desire at all to eat one. Furthermore, when eating my new diet I found that at a certain point I couldn't eat any more even if I wanted to; I get full much sooner and when full, I am full.

The key to this is that carbohydrates are storable energy. As such in nature they are highly coveted and don't last long in the open. This means the optimal strategy when a hunter-gatherer comes across a field of ripening berries is to gorge. The fat you put on might come in handy next month when there's nothing at all. In more normal times when there is no such bounty available, we suffer no inconvenient longings because that wouldn't be useful.

But this strategy fails when we have a supply of such foods all the time. The useful drive to gorge on today's temporary bounty becomes a siren song toward fatal obesity. But if you keep your consumption of such foods below the amount that triggers the cravings -- my limit is about 80g of carbs per day -- the siren song turns itself off and those foods no longer hold so much promise that they require special willpower to avoid.
posted by localroger at 12:13 PM on July 23 [9 favorites]

As I heard it described, eating at McDonalds has three stages:

1. Desire


2. Eating


3. Regret

posted by exogenous at 12:13 PM on July 23 [2 favorites]

Let's imagine, for instance, that some genius invented a reduced calorie bacon product that tasted exactly like bacon, except it had 50 percent fewer calories.

That's a great opportunity to eat twice as much bacon!
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:14 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

Possibly sugar-coated bacon would be a simpler way to get the same rush. Has that turned up at a state fair yet?

Wait, not everyone dips their bacon in syrup after pancakes? Seriously, it's delicious.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 12:14 PM on July 23 [2 favorites]

I had a McGriddle once, in a similar situation as the author, except I had ordered an Egg McMuffin and got the griddle instead. Horrified, yet curious, I decide to try it.

That day I discovered the overwhelming power of guilt that Catholics must feel.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:15 PM on July 23 [3 favorites]

Can someone please help me figure out how you get a job where are paid to dress up the mind-numbingly obvious and call it "science journalism?"

"When you eat at McDonald's, a big part of the pleasure comes from the fact that the food is sustenance."

Holy Shit! What a breakthrough! The cognito-neuro-evobiolutionary explanation for why we enjoy eating at last! It's because if we don't eat we die! Is there anyone with a modicum of comprehension of science that has given this topic more than a few minutes thought and not come up with the hypothesis that if you have a genetic population with a routine history of famine events, introducing that population to a basically limitless calorie supply is going to result in an obesity epidemic?

Aaaanyway. So, uh, anyone want to get into an utterly pointless back and forth about the root cause of obesity? You take "because you're a degenerate reprobate" and I'll take "because I was cursed by God."
posted by nanojath at 12:16 PM on July 23 [3 favorites]

Possibly sugar-coated bacon would be a simpler way to get the same rush.

Paging rtha and her candied bacon recipe.

It's so good it's fucking mind-blowing. And it's really just thick cut bacon dredged in brown sugar and baked on a sheet until crispy. Oh, fuck. Drooling into the keyboardkhjAQAAAAAAAAAAA
posted by loquacious at 12:19 PM on July 23

> That day I discovered the overwhelming power of guilt that Catholics must feel.

That sounds like regret, not guilt...unless you enjoyed it so much you felt bad about depriving another customer of their rightful McGriddle.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:20 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

oceans of high-fructose corn syrup

I know that is a writerly flourish, but that is actually an extremely disconcerting image.
posted by Weebot at 12:22 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

That sounds like regret, not guilt

The guilt of knowingly doing bad things. What are you, some kind Unitarian?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:27 PM on July 23

Denny's is like 25th tier, after just eating Crisco from a jar

I think Denny's makes the only greasy breakfast that can actually make a hangover worse.
posted by uncleozzy at 12:28 PM on July 23 [2 favorites]

Dammit now I'm hungry.
posted by jquinby at 12:29 PM on July 23

> The guilt of knowingly doing bad things.

See, now, this this the sort of discussion we should have been having in my ethics class back in the day.
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:30 PM on July 23

this
posted by The Card Cheat at 12:31 PM on July 23

Weebot, I actually installed a controller years ago on the tank used to mix Coca-Cola syrup at a local bottling plant. A typical run started by filling a 10,000 gallon tank nearly to the top with high fructose corn syrup. So while it's not an ocean, I have seen a swimming pool of the stuff. Sweetened with 2 55-gallon drums of Aspartame.
posted by localroger at 12:31 PM on July 23 [6 favorites]

"As I heard it described, eating at McDonalds has three stages:

1. Desire

2. Eating

3. Regret"

4. Pooping


This is better known as the DERP cycle.
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 12:32 PM on July 23 [20 favorites]

So, uh, anyone want to get into an utterly pointless back and forth about the root cause of obesity?

Screw you, Macs are way better.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:32 PM on July 23 [6 favorites]

...served between two small pancakes that have been injected with maple syrup (or some sort of maple simulacrum)

I think Maple Simulacrum would be a great band name.
posted by Sandor Clegane at 12:32 PM on July 23

This theory fails to explain the total lack of pleasure I experience in eating McDonald's food. From the way it smells (weird, unearthly, not at all like food), to the way it tastes (like sugar mixed with salt, and an undertone of chemistry), to the way it then sits in my gut for the next three hours and provides a sensation much more akin to rotting than digesting. I want to wrap up this comment cleverly, but honestly I'm kind of nauseated now remembering what it's like.
posted by rusty at 12:34 PM on July 23 [4 favorites]

I think Maple Simulacrum would be a great band name.

I thought it was the name of a hockey team of Canadian expats living in Florida.
posted by hippybear at 12:36 PM on July 23 [2 favorites]

Bulg, my sunday breakfast is bacon and syrup, no pancakes required.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:37 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

Bulgaroktonos, I also refer to it as Der Haus von Wafflen. We're kooky that way.

And, hell yes, I dip bacon (and sausage) in syrup.
posted by grubi at 12:39 PM on July 23

As I heard it described, eating at McDonalds has three stages:

Desire

Eating

Regret

Paging William Carlos Williams. Paging William Carlos Williams. Would William Carlos Williams please pick up the white courtesy phone?
posted by yoink at 12:39 PM on July 23

That's still DERP!
posted by hermitosis at 12:53 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

This Is Just To Say
I have eaten
the McDonald's Double Cheeseburgers
that were in
the fridge

and which
you were probably
counting
on me to eat

to give me
serious pause
next time I think about
laying a damn finger
on anything delicious
in the icebox.

Believe me
I'm sorry.
posted by weston at 12:59 PM on July 23 [12 favorites]

This theory fails to explain the total lack of pleasure I experience in eating McDonald's food

BURN THE WITCH!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:01 PM on July 23 [5 favorites]

McGriddles are a guilty pleasure, for sure. I only eat them when I'm at the airport for an early flight - which is maybe 4 times a year. Personally I prefer the sausage ones, minus cheese, because the cheese is weird and gross.

I also enjoy the premium chicken strips with ranch dressing. I don't even like ranch dressing, yet there are a couple times a year when nothing else will hit the spot.

Just yesterday a coworker got McDs for lunch. Three sandwiches (two chicken something or other, one burger) but NO FRIES. Does. not. compute. Dude is also one of those bean pole types that can eat that kind of shit and not gain an ounce. Thankfully for the sake of his arteries he doesn't do it all that often.
posted by misskaz at 1:01 PM on July 23

McGriddles are so so bad for you. The Southern Style Chicken Biscuits at least remind me of real food.
posted by infinitewindow at 1:01 PM on July 23

I have a theory that the quality of any given Denny's restaurant is inversely correlated to its latitude. That is, the further south you go, at least within the United States, the more terrible they are.

I used to regularly stop at Denny's for a late-night snack when I lived up in Maine, and although it's not great food by any means, it wasn't that bad. Certainly a huge step up from fast food. But then I made the mistake of stopping at one outside of Richmond, and it was spectacularly foul. One down in NC, which I ventured into only to take advantage of the Super Bowl free-breakfast promotion (I was on per diem, making it way too good to pass up), was even worse.

Perhaps it's Waffle House taking all the late night drunken-munchies business?
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:11 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

That is, the further south you go, at least within the United States, the more terrible they are.

I can refute this only by noting that I have been subject to digestive terrorism by the Chicopee, MA Denny's on at least two occasions, while a greater number of visits to Las Vegas locations have been, relatively-speaking, incident-free.
posted by uncleozzy at 1:17 PM on July 23

So many comments
upon

a sausage
mcgriddle

glazed with old
grease

inside the blue
internet
posted by stresstwig at 1:17 PM on July 23 [6 favorites]

I used to regularly stop at Denny's for a late-night snack when I lived up in Maine, and although it's not great food by any means, it wasn't that bad. Certainly a huge step up from fast food. But then I made the mistake of stopping at one outside of Richmond, and it was spectacularly foul.

My only Denny's experiences have been in Michigan and Rhode Island, and they were fine, about on par with IHOP.
posted by jock@law at 1:25 PM on July 23

Holy Shit! What a breakthrough! The cognito-neuro-evobiolutionary explanation for why we enjoy eating at last! It's because if we don't eat we die! Is there anyone with a modicum of comprehension of science that has given this topic more than a few minutes thought and not come up with the hypothesis that if you have a genetic population with a routine history of famine events, introducing that population to a basically limitless calorie supply is going to result in an obesity epidemic?

I don't know how close you are to being a science writer, but you've certainly earned the title of pundit by glossing over the details and coming to a conclusion you consider obvious. Yes, we know, eating high calorie foods makes us fat, this is obvious to everyone. What isn't obvious is at what point or points are our reward pathways triggered when we eat food. This has big implications in figuring out why some "diet" foods do or don't work for starters. Proving what is "obvious" in science is just as important as proving something surprising.
posted by TungstenChef at 1:29 PM on July 23 [5 favorites]

Brandon Blatcher admitted I had a McGriddle once, in a similar situation as the author, except I had ordered an Egg McMuffin and got the griddle instead. Horrified, yet curious, I decide to try it.

Third. I remember boarding the plane, having about two bites and discretely shoving the rest in the pocket of the seat in front of me.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:32 PM on July 23

Because we are programmed to enjoy calories.

But... Coke Zero? I like it.

yeh but A->B != B->A
posted by breadfruit at 1:41 PM on July 23

But this research suggests that such a pseudo-bacon product, even though it tasted identical to real bacon, would actually give us much less pleasure. Why? Because it made us less fat. Because energy is inherently delicious. Because we are programmed to enjoy calories.

I suppose this research also suggests that having sex while using contraceptives would actually give the couple much less pleasure, so there's probably no point in trying to develop a birth-control pill. Because babies are inherently delicious, or something.
posted by straight at 2:02 PM on July 23 [2 favorites]

I remember boarding the plane, having about two bites and discretely shoving the rest in the pocket of the seat in front of me.

That would be a neat trick! Can you teach me? I've never been able to move my arms in anything but a more-or-less continuous fashion. Did you use a wormhole?
posted by jock@law at 2:12 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

> That is, the further south you go, at least within the United States, the more terrible they are.

I always enjoyed the Denny's in Kingston, Ontario when I was in school...but, then again, that was more than a decade ago and I'm that much older and wiser and my body will not accept the same sort of of culinary punishment I put it through back then.
posted by The Card Cheat at 2:12 PM on July 23

Metafilter: Because babies are inherently delicious, or something.




Wait, what?
posted by Night_owl at 2:26 PM on July 23

I'll have the something.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:57 PM on July 23

The things I now crave thanks to reading this comment thread, but cannot have because I am at work:

- Funnel Cakes
- Waffle House
- Sugar-coated Bacon

bastards
posted by davejay at 3:05 PM on July 23

Holy Shit! What a breakthrough! The cognito-neuro-evobiolutionary explanation for why we enjoy eating at last!

Actually, this is a really really cool result. Dopamine is classically thought to represent either incentive-salience (weird science-y way of saying motivation) or a learning signal used to adjust to your environment. Refraining for the moment from discussing how these two things are essentially the same thing in most cases, the fact that removing the ability to taste sweetness causes dopamine neurons to preferentially fire based on caloric content alone is freaking awesome. This is either direct evidence that the brain does not require some sort of taste analogue to determine caloric content, or somehow the rodents can taste something else about the water that they find appealing (over time).

Assuming away the latter case, this means that somehow the machinery that monitors caloric intake (whatever that is. I'm a neuroscientist and if it's not in the CNS, I don't know much about it) communicates directly with the brain, sort of like a failsafe mechanism. The activation of dopaminergic neurons in response to a specific stimulus that adds a lot to the survivability of the animal, yet should in principle be undetectable through the classic five senses, is totally awesome.

Seriously, I cannot stress that enough.
posted by scrutiny at 3:20 PM on July 23 [17 favorites]

Also, Bacon Chocolate Chip Cookies are some of the best things I have ever eaten.
posted by scrutiny at 3:23 PM on July 23

I have never made it through a McGriddle. I can handle a standard Egg McMuffn when hungover, but that's about it. But all I really want are those oil-sponge hashbrowns that are unlike anything else on this earth.
posted by mek at 3:25 PM on July 23

As I heard it described, eating at McDonalds has three stages:

1. Desire

2. Eating

3. Regret

4. memory morphing
posted by lacus at 4:52 PM on July 23

McGriddle fan fiction. You're welcome.
posted by roll truck roll at 4:53 PM on July 23 [3 favorites]

But... Coke Zero? I like it.
posted by GuyZero

It's just reinforcing your love of your name. Add "zero" onto any product and I'm sure you'd be more inclined to buy it.
posted by filthy light thief at 5:02 PM on July 23

The things I now crave thanks to reading this comment thread, but cannot have because I am in Minnesota:

- Waffle House

bastards
posted by graventy at 5:15 PM on July 23

Why don't we have this?

Massive McMuffin — Ketchup, bacon, egg, American cheese and two sausage patties.
Available in New Zealand and some parts of Australia.

posted by smackfu at 5:38 PM on July 23

And since nobody has even acknowledged yet...

Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit FTW!
posted by hippybear at 5:54 PM on July 23

See, I have a theory about McDonald's, and that is: Everything they make is all one thing, and in the back, you know, they have this big vat full of this...stuff...and these little moulds come by, and it's like:

*splork* Hamburger!

*splork* Malt!

*splork* Paper box!

*splork* Here's your change!

—Steve Martin
posted by Sys Rq at 7:20 PM on July 23

McDonalds food is what the phrase sui generis was pretty much invented for.
posted by yhbc at 7:21 PM on July 23

Massive McMuffin — Ketchup, bacon, egg, American cheese and two sausage patties.

If I'm not mistaken, you could put one together with two Sausage McMuffins, a ketchup packet and a Bacon, Egg & Cheese Biscuit.

Now my stomach feels a little funny.
posted by box at 7:30 PM on July 23

Every so often I get a craving for a McGriddle. If I finish an entire one, I'll feel horrible for the next few hours and basically want no more food for the rest of the day. Half of one, though, and I'm happy, satiated, and ravenous when lunchtime rolls around.

I've made chocolate (half white, half dark) covered bacon; I crisp the bacon so it ends up resembling a wafer with substance. Surprisingly, the salt and protein goes quite well with the dark chocolate. The white was a little too sweet.

/eats bacon and french toast fried in bacon grease, all swimming in a lake of maple syrup, about once a week
//desperately wants to tour the good state fairs, sometime
posted by porpoise at 8:28 PM on July 23

The McGriddle is tasty (processed cheese and maple flavoured syrup: who knew?), but it tastes more like grease than anything else.

(By the phrase, "It tastes more like grease than anything else," I don't just mean, "It tastes more like grease than it tastes like any other ingredient," but also, "It tastes more like grease than anything else at McDonald's tastes like grease," which is really saying something.)

The only good breakfastfood at McDonald's is the Hot Cakes with Sausage. Sure, you can't eat it while driving a car; sure, it requires utensils; sure, you have to apply the maple-flavoured syrup yourself; sure, it comes in an earth-murdering oversized styrofoam clamshell container; sure, the Sausage looks suspiciously identical to a regular hamburger patty; sure, the almost-too-perfectly-sausagey flavour of the Sausage completely penetrates into the Hot Cakes; sure, they're called "Hot Cakes" instead of "pancakes" or "flapjacks" or anything any normal person might call such foodstuffs. Still, god damn them's some tasty Hot Cakes.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:00 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

Why don't we have this?

Massive McMuffin — Ketchup, bacon, egg, American cheese and two sausage patties.
Available in New Zealand and some parts of Australia.

That's a lie. For a start, nobody outside America eats American cheese.

Ok, it does exist in NZ. But I've never seen it in Australia. And I love breakfast at Maccas. (It's kind of mean the way they stop serving it so early, though.)
posted by jacalata at 10:23 PM on July 23

nobody outside America eats American cheese.

I don't know how to put this without alienating our American brethren. But... there's nothing American about "American cheese". It's just processed cheese, ie the bits that fell off the floor down at the cheese factory pulverised, emulsified, and extruded. There is a local brand called "Chesdale*" which we here in NZ regard as authentic Kiwiana. I think an American would recognise it instantly.

Here is how innocent I used to be about dairy products, and the USA. On my first trip to the US, I was offered something -- maybe a corned beef sandwich, maybe a hamburger, maybe some sort of pasteurised burrito product -- I can't recall -- with "American cheese." And I was quite excited about this. I thought that maybe American cheese was some indigenous cheese, only obtainable in the fabled United States, that would be special and neat and cheesey and American. And it was a slice of fucking processed cheese. I can tell you, that taught me a lot about America.

*My partner just leaned over my shoulder and exclaimed "Chesdale is much nicer than American cheese", which I think is a view grounded in parochialism rather than taste, but there you are.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 2:27 AM on July 24 [1 favorite]

But... there's nothing American about "American cheese".

Not so much not particularly American as it seems to be not particularly cheese, I'd say.
posted by weston at 2:47 AM on July 24 [1 favorite]

Which brings to mind one of my favorite Uncle Bonzai lyrics:

"Velveeta: it's the Spam of the cheeses."
posted by hippybear at 6:57 AM on July 24

Don't be mocking American cheese. I love Land-o-lakes from the deli counter.
posted by smackfu at 7:08 AM on July 24

"Chesdale is much nicer than American cheese", which I think is a view grounded in parochialism rather than taste, but there you are.

But boy it's got a mighty taste!
posted by yoink at 10:56 AM on July 24

Why do I hate food and eating, then? It's such a chore.
posted by Eideteker at 1:16 PM on July 24

Don't be mocking American cheese. I love Land-o-lakes from the deli counter.

I'm not saying American cheese can't be tasty, tasty stuff. It just seems more cheese-like than like cheese.
posted by weston at 7:44 PM on July 24

Fascinating research, though it doesn't portend well for "dieters" (or the obesity epidemic). It also demonstrates why low-calories substitutes for *food* (not drinks, which aren't generally calorie resources) miserably fail.

Cutting calories, sugar, and fat when you eat portions of the stuff regularly (combined together in large quantities) is nigh impossible.

if you keep your consumption of such foods below the amount that triggers the cravings -- my limit is about 80g of carbs per day -- the siren song turns itself off and those foods no longer hold so much promise that they require special willpower to avoid.

So, so true. I am horrible with cookies, donuts, candy, etc. (especially if I'm on the cannabis). I can throw down 20-25 chocolate chip cookies in an hour, and it's *very* hard to stop.

But yeah, if I stop eating that stuff regularly, the cravings pretty much disappear.

The things I now crave thanks to reading this comment thread, but cannot have because I am at work:

- Funnel Cakes
- Waffle House
- Sugar-coated Bacon

See, I love all that stuff too (especially La Maison des Gaufres), but I have literally zero desire for any of it right now, because I haven't been eating sugar lately.

Now if I started to take a few bites of those things, watch out...
posted by mrgrimm at 8:58 AM on July 25

But... Coke Zero? I like it.
posted by GuyZero

It's just reinforcing your love of your name. Add "zero" onto any product and I'm sure you'd be more inclined to buy it.
posted by filthy light thief at 8:02 PM on July 23 [+] [!]

Especially if you're a dude.
posted by zoomorphic at 12:05 PM on July 25