365 Ways #347–The Appestat

#347--There's a region of the brain inside the hypothalamus which regulates the sense of hunger. It's called the appestat. And while you may have never heard this term before, for decades food scientists have been manipulating its response to at least 51 different nutrients which play a role in satiety. They've spent billions of dollars researching the effect of adding a little salt here or a little sugar there. By creating a particular taste in a laboratory and injecting it into whatever boxed, canned, or bottled concoction they can put on the shelves, they know you'll be unable to resist the appestat and its demand to eat, even after you've stuffed yourself. Remember Lay's potato chips? I bet you couldn't eat just one. And the more you ate, the more money these companies made. Their goal isn't to get us fat necessarily. They just want to fatten their wallets. Our waistlines are just an ever expanding byproduct of their continued success.