Ever felt like you’re so full after a meal that you cannot take one more bite but then dessert appears and suddenly you seem to have grown a second stomach? Yeah we have all been there. No matter how full we are, when that sinful plate of chocolate brownie with ice-cream is placed in front of us, we dive straight in because of course, dessert goes straight to the soul.
Turns out, that is not quite the case. It is rather a condition termed as Sensory Specific Satiety(SSS). When we have been eating a certain type of food for some time at length, our senses basically get bored and we lose our appetite. That gives our brain the impression that we are so full that we cannot eat another morsel. But then the dessert arrives with a different flavor, color, smell and taste and our senses are revived enabling us to devour it with so much gusto. SSS causes our sensory perceptions to be dulled during the course of a meal and send the wrong signal to the brain. So the bowl of dessert is even more tempting and magically brings back our appetite.
The same holds true in the opposite case as well. It is hard to believe but there, in fact, is such a thing called too much ice cream. Keep gorging on desserts and your taste buds would soon tire of the sweet taste and would probably crave a plate of hot and spicy chicken wings that can immediately restore your appetite.
So the next time you feel too full after a meal and you think of giving that delicious dessert a miss in fear if overeating, worry not. It is just your SSS kicking in. You still have space to squeeze it in, it’s just your palate that needs a change.
The reason behind us always having space for dessert might not be as miraculous as we always thought but the dessert itself is no less magical. So grab the spoon and tuck in..Happy eating!
Tags: Cakes Dessert Food zone Foodies Ice cream Sweet Tooth sweets
