because of the need of calories goes down.
when we're eating the same kind of food, we basically keep on gaining more
nutrients, and so therefore, we no longer need the nutrients for the energy, so
therefore, we don't like it as much. Sometimes we say that well, there are
other minerals, macronutrients that they are no long needed, so we develop this
sensory-specific satiety. But I think that from all the experiments
done in the past, what we learn is that there are two main factors.
One of the factors is related to the amount of the food, or the volume of the
food. The larger it is, in fact, you get
sensory-specific satiety very quickly. The next thing is because of the amount
of sensory stimulation. Think about that, if you are eating
something which is sweet, I constantly give you sweet food, again and again, and
again not necessarily, because of the amount, is because of the stimulation.
The repeated stimulation is going to generate some sort of like
desensitization. Then you lost interest in it, so
therefore, the focus is the following. The volume and the amount of stimulation
and the food. That is going to result in sensory
specific satiety. Now, we would ask how the consuming of
the one food would affect the pleasentness of the other.
And in fact, if you understand how the sensory specific satiety comes in to
places then certainly you would understand why sometimes when we're
eating something sweet. And then you eat something which is not
exactly the same food, but then if it's still sweet you've lost interest in that and
you don't want to eat that anymore. Because they have the same kind of
stimulation, and also sometimes we say that when the food will have the same
kind of texture. Lets say if they're very soft.
You constantly eat something that is very soft and very jello like again and again
and again. Over time we repeat this stimulation
results in sensory specific satiety. Now, that in fact is very important.
We ask, when we develop that, how this response, this hedonic response, is going
to be generated. We say that, well, can we simply
stimulate your sensory input with or without ingestion.
What are the two? Sensory input sometimes is coming from
the tongue, coming from the nose. But when you ingest sometime it's in your
throat so that's a different place being stimulated.
And sometimes when we learn about whether a food is good or bad, we also think
about what's behind the food. What's the knowledge about how the food
is being prepared. That again is stimulating a different
perception. And sometimes, of course, when we eat the
same thing again and again, I can't eliminate the possibility that because,
that we are no longer in demand of the energy or the nutrients.
So the interest or satisfaction that we would obtain is much less.
Now, we ask if that's the case, would there be any food which is, they taste so
good, they would be resistant to any sensory-specific satiety?
I guess, it's very unlikely, because we know that in all the sensory input that
we obtain. In fact, all the sensory receptors that
we were talking about a bit earlier, they were being stimulated, but then gradually
they become desensitized. So, what happen is that sometime some
food, if it tastes very good, it may take them a little bit longer to get
desensitized and you lost interest in them.
And some food, if they're not tasting very good, maybe they develop the sensory
specific satiety a little bit earlier. Now, having that in mind, it reminds you
of one thing. When you're preparing food, the most
important element of it, we want to generate variation of flavor.
We want to generation variation of shape of the food.
We want to generate variation of the texture of the food, the appearance, and
sometimes we want to use different material.
All this, essentially, is talking about when more of these properties are being
provided in the stimulations. We would have more satisfaction coming out
of it. It enhances the quality of food.
So what I mean is that there are two aspects.
One is physicologically. that means we have more of senory organ being stimulated at
the same time. At the same it has another element of it,
which is about the nutritional input. It is instinct, it built evolution,
that's why we want to have different texture at different taste.
Because different taste stands for they represent different kind of nutrient.
So more stimulation, that means we are capturing a lot of important type of
nutrients. So therefore, it is good, isn't it?
So that's what they say. This is a very important strategy for
survival, because having this variation of stimulation means that we will have
more energy intake, because there are more nutrients of different shape and
form and taste and smell they are coming to us.
So, we would able to maintain some sort of like a nutritional balance.
Now, take that into mind even though we are not really aiming for getting this
nutritional balance when we are preparing a meal, but then it help us to do the
meal planning. So take for an example using a famous
Chinese dish called Peking duck. We want to introduce idea that we want to
increase the so called contrast to have more ingredients that can stimulate our
sensory input. In this case, in the peking duck look at
what is in the peking duck. The peking duck is not just a duck.
What a Peking duck has is that we would have a duck.
Usually they are a little bit of fat so they need to have fat underneath the
skin, and they have meat. So, certainly and when they are roasted
like this they have a very specific color.
What other things do we add? We have the dough and it depends on
different restaurants. Some of the dough are much
softer or thicker some, some are harder and we have the, the, the onion,
sometimes we have cucumber and all this together with the sauce.
Now combined together, what do we do? When you eat them, you cut a piece of
this duck with the skin, together with the fat and some meat.
What do you do? You wrap them into the dough and you put
the crispy cucumber and you put the sauce.
What are you experiencing? It's something like this, and then you
eat them all in one mouth and put into your mouth
and you, what do you sense? You are sensing a variation of texture.
You are sensing a variation of temperature.
The duck is hot but the cucumber is cold and the taste
You have the taste of the sauce. You have the taste of the cucumber.
You have the taste of the meat. You have the taste of the skin, which is
crispy. At the same they have a different
texture. The cucumber is a bit crunchy, and the
fat, they would be very soft. the meat maybe a little bit tender.
So, at the same time, you combine all these in one single bite.
That gives you the maximum stimulation of the sensory input.
And that's why you find Peking duck is very tasty.
And in fact, in the following we can do experiment with our students and see
actually how they perceive this sensory specific satiety.
And that will tell us how come sometimes you don't want to eat certain food
and sometimes you want to eat more.
King L. ChowProfessor
Lam Lung YeungAssociate Professor
