Artificial Flavors Are Rewiring Your Palate and Making You Hate Eating Healthy

“The Dorito Effect” is a book by Mark Schatzker, which elaborates on the artificial food industry and the flavor. Schatzker explains that evolution hasn’t programmed human to get obese, but instead people have tricked themselves into craving the unhealthy food. As he explains, the desirability of food has got increased by the synthetic flavors, while the flavor of whole foods is getting lost. He believes that the prettier colors or longer shelf life of engineering food has diminished the taste With the creation of synthetic flavors, people have broken the link between nutrition and flavor, producing foods with false nutritional value.

Back in the days, people were able to indicate the health value of food by its flavor. If a person craved for some flavor, it meant that his/ her body needed that specific ingredient. So for example, if a person craved for an orange it meant that her/his body probably requires vitamin C But in such cases, if a person drinks an orange soda, it will trick her/his body to feel it’s receiving the vitamin, but the craving will still continue as the person will still need that vitamin.

Schatzker explains his path of discovering the dangers of artificial flavor. He stopped adding sugar in his coffee because he wanted to feel the real taste of the beverage, and not because he wanted to cut back on sugar He says he felt like his palate was rewired. You will be able to feel the natural sweetness of fruits and saltiness of vegetables if you try to consume food without artificial flavors.