Mac and Cheese is the absolute perfect food for literally any occasion. When I’m sick, I want mac and cheese. When I’m hungover, I want mac and cheese. When I am sitting down for a night of the Bachelorette with my girls, I want mac and cheese. I think you get the point now. I’m never not in the mood for a steaming, plate full of cheesy goodness. It may not be a nutritionally balanced meal, but it is always good! If you are like me, it turns out that there might be a scientific reason for why we love foods like mac and cheese, pizza, and even doughnuts so much.
A new study from Yale University, published in this month’s Cell Metabolism, finds that these foods that are high in fats and carbohydrates might be stimulating our brain in the similar way that drugs do. No seriously, the reward center of our brain apparently lights up like a Christmas tree when we eat these kinds of foods.
In the study, researchers began collecting images of foods that fell into three categories, “fat, carbohydrates, and fats plus carbohydrates”. Participants were then asked to rate all of these snacks for “liking, familiarity, estimated energy density, and total calories”. On a different day, they fasted for a time, and were then fed a breakfast at the lab, which consisted of orange juice, cheddar cheese, whole wheat toast, white toast, strawberry jam, and butter. Honestly, that sounds like an amazing breakfast, nothing but delicious bread!
Three hours later, they were given five euros to spend, and were told that they could bid anywhere between zero to five against a computer to buy the snacks they had previously rated. As they completed the exercise, each participant was hooked to an FMRI machine. The scanner helped to show researchers what was going on in their brain as they bid on items.
The results showed that the subjects were more willing to spend money on snacks that were both high in fat and carbs than they were for snacks that were primarily high in fats or high in carbs. As well, participants brains from just seeing the photos of the snacks “lit up neural circuits in the reward center of the brain more than a favorite food, a potentially sweeter or more energy-dense food, or a larger portion size.” As a result, they found that foods high in fats and carbs are more rewarding to us than other options.
What makes the study’s findings so fascinating, according to Dana Small author and professor of psychiatry at Yale University is that foods high in both fats and carbohydrates don’t generally exist in nature. The only exception is in Breast milk as it contains a ton of both fats and carbs.
According to Popular Science, the reality is that our brain had to become hardwired to like fats and carbs. Over time, we evolved to prefer them as our society began to depart from our hunter gatherer days and jumped into the processed foods scene. Mac cheese combines both fats and carbs as the cheese is low in carbs, but high in fats. (Remember fats aren’t a terrible thing; we need them to survive!) The pasta in the delicious dish is considered a complex carbohydrate. Basically, supporting the findings in the study. Pizza also combines fat from the cheese and complex carbs, so does French fries, ice creams, and avocado toast. All of these foods light up the same reward systems within our brains.
It all makes sense now!