Do you remember your Nat Science classes? The diagram of a tongue showing us that each area of this organ allowed us to perceive the bitter, the sweet... Well this map is totally false. In fact, its creators misinterpreted the research of a German student in 1901! In fact, his experience showed that we perceived a little more the taste of sugar on the tip of the tongue. In truth, our whole mouth, including the palate, loves and perceives sugar. And it doesn't stop there! Because it was discovered that receptors also exist in the esophagus and in the stomach.
As early as 1975, scientists showed that children loved sugar much more than adults and from that time it was suggested that the sweeter foods for children offered by manufacturers would then condition them to want more and more when they were adults. “In other words, the more the food industry sweetened its products, the more the children liked the sweet”, also explains the author of “Sugar Salt and Fats, How the industrialists make us addicted”, Michael Moss. And today, if we cannot resist all these sweet products, it is also because the industry has programmed us well.
Have you heard of the "point of bliss"? This concept was introduced in the 70s. The bliss point is the optimal concentration of sugar that ensures maximum pleasure. Manufacturers are constantly looking for this point and therefore push the doses of sugar to the maximum, without worrying about the nutritional aspect, to make consumers truly addicted to their product. But be careful, if we exceed this point of happiness, the consumer will turn away from the product, he feels that there is too much sugar. Similar experiments have been conducted with fat and the results are… very different. Moss's book describes in detail all the studies and experiments that have been conducted to understand our addiction to food (and used by the food industry later…).
The experience deserves to be told in detail. We used 13 guinea pigs (humans I assure you) who were given a mixture of milk, cream and sugar. The idea was to try to understand what makes fat so appealing. In each mixture the dose of cream varied. The results were surprising because for fat, there was neither a bliss point nor a break point. None of the guinea pigs refused the increasingly fatty mixtures offered to them. Faced with fat, our senses are powerless to give a warning signal. Manufacturers can therefore put as many as they want. We will simply find the products always more delicious!
The danger is therefore much worse with fat than with sugar because our body gives us no signal to make us understand that it is too much. But the worst happens when you combine fat and sugar. Students were asked to rate fifteen frostings in which the proportion of sugar and fat varied. They succeeded in identifying the dose of sugar. But he was unable to assess the amount of fat. “Also,” Moss explains, “when you added sugar to the fattier mixes, they were wrong and thought they were lighter. »
The studies that Michael Moss echoes in his book are all extremely enlightening for those who want to better understand how we work and how manufacturers use the discoveries of researchers to better sell us products that are not necessarily good for our line or our health. .
We could have made a bad journalist pun by saying that we devoured it, but we didn't dare. On the other hand, all those who are interested in their food and nutrition will be passionate about "Sugar, Salt and Fats, How manufacturers make us addicted" Michael Moss, Ed. Calmann-Levy, €19.90. The opportunity to go for a walk at the bookstore in your neighborhood.
