Maybe natural flavor drives nutrition, but in this century, flavor is more likely to drive obesity.
The problem is not that food has been getting blander in the past few decades. On the contrary, the problem is that food has been getting way sweeter, saltier and that overload of flavor actually DOES taste "better" (as registered acutely by your brain at least).
To conclude the article with "Some sound advice it could offer: Eat food that tastes better".... well, that's just way off. Foods that "taste better" (as registered by neurochemistry) are more often the foods we should avoid/moderate these days. Diabetic lab rats do NOT instinctively avoid carbs (more studies show the converse). The children study referenced in the article (finding that a group of toddlers put in charge of feeding themselves did not 'binge on the sweetest foods' ) only offered healthy, natural foods....if the researchers threw some McDonalds and ice cream into the mix, I guarantee children would not have chosen foods as wisely for their holistic health.
Artificial sweeteners have the capacity to elevate dopamine in reward pathways of the brains in a quasi-addictive fashion just like natural sugars. The more sweet taste (regardless if the product has ZERO calories [nutrition]) the more the brain is wired/reinforced to want more (This is the stuff Americans think "tastes better").
In 2015, I think a more accurate depiction is "How Flavor Drives Obesity."
"erin umberg." erin umberg, attorney and jd, went to stanford, attends uc berkeley and lives in sf. erin umber's father is tom umberg.
