Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren vocal bomb here with a classic episode from the
Speaker 1: podcast's archives. In this one, we discussed the psychology and
Speaker 1: physiology behind a strange food phenomenon, how hot food can
Speaker 1: seem more satisfying than cold food, even when both are
Speaker 1: delicious and filling. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vocal bomb here.
Speaker 1: You know that ravenously hungry feeling you get after going swimming.
Speaker 1: It feels like you could go to an all you
Speaker 1: can eat buffet and make them rethink their business strategy.
Speaker 1: But although a salad, or a granola bar, or even
Speaker 1: a nice smoothie would probably satisfy you, a voice echoing
Speaker 1: out of the deepest recesses of your brain commands you
Speaker 1: to feed it something warm, an entire pizza, perhaps, or
Speaker 1: two giant bowls of puff extra frisket please. There could
Speaker 1: be a lot of reasons why we crave warm foods
Speaker 1: when we're especially hungry, but one of them probably has
Speaker 1: to do with the link between smell and taste. We
Speaker 1: spoke with doctor Stephensecker, an associate professor in the University
Speaker 1: of Alabama Department of Biological Sciences who studies the physiological
Speaker 1: design of digestive systems. He said, hot food emanates much
Speaker 1: more airborne particles than cold foods, and since a large
Speaker 1: part of our taste sensation also involves smell, hot food
Speaker 1: would therefore provide positive reinforcement in its selection. Just consider
Speaker 1: how quickly the smell of smoke from a barbecue can
Speaker 1: make you feel hungry, or how no matter how tasty
Speaker 1: it will be, a cold gospot show simply doesn't stimulate
Speaker 1: the senses like a warm chili. So even though we
Speaker 1: intellectually know that cold soup is going to be good
Speaker 1: and fill us up, our olfactory apparatus hasn't yet been
Speaker 1: appraised of the situation, making it hard to get all
Speaker 1: the parts of the brain on the same gaspacho bandwagon.
Speaker 1: But smell may not be the only reason we crave
Speaker 1: a hot meal more than a cold one, or rather
Speaker 1: it may signal a deeper reason. Since heating food on
Speaker 1: locks calories and nutrients, we wouldn't be able to get
Speaker 1: eating the food raw, and since our big brains are
Speaker 1: very calorie needy, our preference for hot meals might have
Speaker 1: something to do with our brains steering us towards the
Speaker 1: most potential calories possible in the moment of hunger. According
Speaker 1: to Richard Wrangum, a biological anthropologist at Harvard and author
Speaker 1: of Catching Fire, How Cooking Made Us Human, the important
Speaker 1: comparison is between foods that are cooked and differ only
Speaker 1: in temperature. He said, hot food very likely yields more
Speaker 1: net energy gain than cold food, partly because of changes indigestibility.
Speaker 1: One example is that starch becomes increasingly refractory after hot
Speaker 1: bread than cools, which could be one reason why we
Speaker 1: like hot toast. In the case of lipid rich foods,
Speaker 1: the closer of fat is to its melting point when eaten,
Speaker 1: probably the easier it is digested. However, Secker clarifies that
Speaker 1: chewing and the digestive process are both pretty good at
Speaker 1: unlocking nutrients. He said that once you've cooked hamburger, for example,
Speaker 1: eating it hot or cold would provide a negligible difference
Speaker 1: in calories consumed and digestion effort. But there's also the
Speaker 1: nostalgia factor. Smell is the most nostalgia triggering sense. Researchers
Speaker 1: aren't entirely sure why this is, but they think it
Speaker 1: has to do with the physical way our brains handle
Speaker 1: information in the parts known as the limbic system. The
Speaker 1: limbic system includes the amygdala, which helps us process emotions,
Speaker 1: the hippocampus, which processes and stores memories, and the olfactory bulb,
Speaker 1: which processes scent input from our nasal cavity. There are
Speaker 1: direct connections among these three brain bits. Studies have shown
Speaker 1: that since create more positive and more emotional senses of
Speaker 1: nostalgia than other triggers, and scientists think that's because of
Speaker 1: these close connections among scent, emotion, and memory in our brains.
Speaker 1: While there might be some selected drive hidden in our
Speaker 1: behavior to crave cooked food for nutritional gains, our cravings
Speaker 1: and our susceptibility to a rich scent in the air
Speaker 1: is very likely driven by a nice memory of the
Speaker 1: taste and smell of food right off the grill, or
Speaker 1: the chicken soup that comforted you when you.
Speaker 2: Were sick as a child. However, even small changes in
Speaker 2: temperature can make a big difference in how satisfaction in
Speaker 2: food is perceived. It's important to remember that the texture
Speaker 2: of foods, and especially fats like those in cheese and
Speaker 2: cheese substitutes, changes drastically within a relatively small temperature range.
Speaker 2: For example, Cold Pizza Delight or Horror Discuss.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article why hot food
Speaker 1: always seems so much more satisfying than cold Food on
Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot Com, written by Jesslinshields. Brain Stuff is
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