The abundance of aromas and variety of colors and sounds alarms your taste and urges you to eat. Whether we are hungry or not, they force us to eat. Without even realizing it, we consume large sizes of meal that contains two thirds of our daily calorie need even though we are not hungry. If these enjoyable meal moments continue repeatedly, it becomes a weight problem that can affect the rest of our lives. There are many processed foods that are flavored with high levels of salt, sugar and oil. As day by day, we consume these kinds of foods, taste buds in our tongue get used to such intense aromas. We begin to be numb and unable to enjoy the foods that contain less of these flavors. So we begin to dislike less salty, less sugary or less fatty foods. You can easily test this at home. If you try to consume a fruit after consuming a high-sugar candy, chocolate or cookie, you won't be able to feel the taste. The fruit will no longer satisfy you. Therefore, you need to rest your tongue and accustom your tongue to natural flavors, otherwise eating healthy foods becomes a torture. Before starting a healthy nutrition programme, you should clean your tongue from these flavors for a few weeks according to your frequency of processed food consumption.
According to the researches in behavioural neuroscience, nutrition, and psychology tells us that foods that are rich in fat, salt, and sugar are changing the brain chemistry by stimulating the dopamine (which is a neurotransmitter for pleasure). This is one of the reasons why we desire and addict to some foods and drinks that are high in fat, sugar and salt. Ideally, dopamine secretion at measured levels will keep us in a mood of satisfaction and happy but not intense enough to cause a sudden drop. Let's say you have consumed a fatty food so you have sent a signal to your brain to release more dopamine and you will feel shortly a burst of joy. If you consume fatty foods occasionally, it doesn't cause a problem. But if you overdose it with excessive sugary, fatty, salty food consumption, your brain chemistry will start to be damaged. Instead of producing dopamine regularly, your brain expects those foods that quickly increase the level of dopamine. As a result, the body begins to feel dopamine deficiency and becomes addicted to this type of food. Over time, you begin to need more food for raising your dopamine levels. This becomes a vicious circle and you are no longer satisfied with less fatty foods. So don't expect to change quickly because if you want to change, first you should repair your brain chemistry. Eating healthy is a process and you have to give enough time.
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