Fast food is undeniably appetizing, cheap and convenient. Yet and still, there’s a general consensus that regular consumption of it is no good for us. Is it true that fast food restaurants put something in your food to make you want more?
The problem with hyperpalatable food
People are eating food prepared outside the home more than ever. 36% of American adults consume something from a fast food restaurant on any given day1. Also, we eat more frequently within a day than ever. Snacking has become a common practice, with many of us having an eating occasion five or six times each day2.
Restaurants have teamed up with food scientists to make their burgers, fries, and shakes as tasty as possible. Hyperpalatable foods like these are meaty, have added sugar and high sodium content. Humans love the combined tastes of umami, sweetness and saltiness, so fast food is the perfect trifecta. (Check out this interesting video on why, for this reason, Hot Cheetos are scientifically the most addictive snack). Also, these foods are served in large (sometimes, SUPER) portion sizes.
Given that the amount of food you consume is a function of portion size, palatability, and the number of times you eat in a day, it’s no wonder why Americans are gaining weight. Restaurants use science to pull you in to keep eating more of their hyperpalatable, fat-storing foods without ever feeling truly satisfied.
Eating chewed-up food
Fast food is ultraprocessed—altered in a way to be as different as possible from its natural state. Notice how these foods are, in a way, already digested before even hitting your stomach. Beef for burgers is pulverized into a paste and potatoes are cut into scrawny, double-fried shoestrings softened by scalding hot oil. Research shows that people eat more rapidly when they are given ultra-processed foods compared to minimally processed foods. That’s probably because ultraprocessed foods are easier to bite and mindlessly gulp down than simple food. How many chews does it take you to swallow a piece of steak vs. a hamburger?
A rapid eating rate is associated with a greater number of calories consumed3. In other words, food giants know that giving you chewed-up food leads to overconsumption.
The Hidden Addictive Sugar
It’s not only that these foods cause you to eat more calories. It’s the particular type of calories you are eating—high-glycemic index, refined carbohydrates. Yep, fast food is loaded with sugar in both obvious (shakes and sodas) and hidden (french fries, sauces, burger buns) ways4.
Sugar consumption can contribute to weight gain in a twofold manner: 1) when we eat sugar, we release the hormone insulin, which tells our fat cells to store fat and 2) sugar itself “can induce reward and craving that are comparable in magnitude to those induced by addictive drugs”5. Like a cycle, we have a hard time not eating the things that cause us to gain weight.
Home cooking is the way to go to prevent weight gain
I don’t know about you, but I am a bottomless pit when it comes to McDonald’s french fries. I can eat a TON of those crispy, salty shoestrings without ever getting full. Yet, when it comes to my *famous* homemade fries—slicing and soaking Russet potatoes then double air-frying them in olive oil and seasoning them with salt, red pepper and garlic—I get full off two handfuls.
I noticed that same dilemma with literally anything from a fast food restaurant compared to its homemade counterpart. I can easily eat 2 WhopperJr.’s plus a large fry, but when I make hand-formed burgers at home, I’m stuffed after just one. Same with breakfast sandwiches, pancakes…
Don’t forget fiber
In order to make burger buns and pancakes and desserts, fast food restaurants use flour that’s been stripped of its bran and germ. Refined flour has almost no fiber. Fiber provides “bulk” to the stomach, making it have to actually churn and work. This increases feelings of fullness. Because there is almost no fiber in fast food, it’s difficult to get full off of it, no matter how many calories are in the meal. In this case, it may not be so much what’s in fast food, but what’s out of fast food (fiber) that makes you want more.
Supersize Me
Fast food restaurants exploit our psychology by providing large portions of sugary drinks and sugar-loaded foods . Generally speaking, humans eat with their eyes. The larger the portion served, the more calories a person is going to eat6. Fast food restaurants compete to attract people to eat big portions of their foods through psychological manipulation and the subtle attraction of “getting a bang for your buck”.
Tell Your Inner Child “You have McDonald’s at Home”
Maybe our parents were right to tell us this. Do yourself a favor and don’t fall into the psychological trap that is fast food. Cook real food at home and you’ll find yourself eating smaller portions and less frequently.
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3479669/ ↩︎
- https://www.jandonline.org/article/S0002-8223(05)01730-X/abstract ↩︎
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7353031/#:~:text=Eating%20rate%20was%20positively%20associated,showed%20no%20association%20%5B26%5D. ↩︎
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32576300/ ↩︎
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23719144/ ↩︎
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4579823/ ↩︎