Taste and appetite

Abstract

In this short paper, I discuss two interpretations of the implications of food reward for healthy eating. It is often argued that foods that are palatable and provide sensory pleasure lead to overeating. I discuss an example of an experiment that claims to demonstrate this, to many people, intuitively reasonable result. I point out a number of assumptions about reward and eating behaviour underlying this sort of thinking and ask whether overeating might not instead, to a large extent, result from avoiding reward and sensory satisfaction. Four different experimental results that support the suggestion that ‘quality can replace quantity’ are briefly reviewed.