Do you ever wonder why, for some reason, barbecue chips just taste so much better to you than a bag of baby carrots do?
Well, a new book called The Dorito Effect may just have the answer.
It’s based on the progress of Doritos from a regular tortilla chip to the radioactive orange snack we all know and love. Artificial flavoring was the key to raising sales for our favorite “nacho cheese” snack.
But why?
Mark Schatzker, the author of The Dorito Effect, says: “Synthetic flavors in foods have heightened in desirability at the very same time that whole foods are losing flavor.” Basically, we started eating these foods because they taste better, and we keep eating them because now this is what we think food should taste like.
In evolution, flavor and nutritional value were linked. Different tastes in different foods told us about what nutrients they contained.
The problem with artificial flavoring, it seems, is that we’re replicating the flavors without replicating the nutrients. And that’s led us to the point where we now use 600 million pounds of artificial flavorings every year, while whole foods get more bland because they’re being raised for shelf life, not flavor.
Of course, what we’re forgetting is that while whole foods don’t have the same in-your-face flavor punch that processed foods do, their flavors are much more nuanced.
You can do a lot with the taste of onion and garlic and cilantro in guacamole, and it tastes better than the tortilla chips you eat with it.
The trick? Cutting out processed foods, and retraining your body to recognize those flavors again.
Once you reduce a lot of those processed snacks from your life, not only will you retrain yourself to like natural, whole foods, but you’ll probably lose weight too.
Not only that, but you’ll reap all the benefits of eating whole foods, like improved cardiovascular health and lower cholesterol.
