Accidentally transferred from @ Squirrel Cloud
Most people will have a craving for a certain food at some point. In food science, this desire is called "desire", and the Chinese word "greed" explains its meaning well.
In fact, women are more likely than men to crave certain foods, especially foods high in sugar and fat. One hypothesis is that sugar can promote the release of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin, also known as "serotonin", can calm people, reduce impatience and bring a feeling of pleasure and happiness. However, this is only a hypothesis and there is not much scientific evidence to support it.
Chocolate is the most popular food. 199 1 year, Paul Rozin, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, published a study in Appetite magazine, investigating the preferences of hundreds of undergraduates and their parents for various foods. Results Chocolate was the most popular food: among all kinds of foods, 40% of women and 15% of men expressed their greed for chocolate. Considering that chocolate is just one of many delicious foods, this ratio is quite high. Further analysis shows that more than half of women who eat chocolate are related to the menstrual cycle: one or two days before and after menstruation is the time when they eat chocolate the most.
There are some studies on why people crave chocolate, but there is no convincing conclusion. A popular hypothesis is that chocolate contains phenylethylamine (PEA). This nerve stimulant can make people more energetic and excited. When PEA is released in the brain, people's breathing and heartbeat are accelerated, their palms are sweaty and their cheeks are red, which is the image of seeing the opposite sex "getting an electric shock". This assumption is deeply loved by chocolate merchants, and chocolate is endowed with the connotation of "the messenger of love".
But this assumption is not very reliable. Because chocolate is eaten in the stomach, the peas in it will be quickly decomposed into phenylacetic acid, and there is no chance to reach the brain, so people can't "excrete". Therefore, chocolate makes lovers call, just like diamonds make lovers excited, mainly because of its attached "connotation", not what substance it contains.
1994, the same researcher from the Department of Psychology of the University of Pennsylvania wrote in Physiology &; Behavior) published a study on chocolate ingredients to alleviate cravings. The researchers (Willa Michener and Paul Rozin) found many undergraduate volunteers, picked out those who were greedy for chocolate as the research object and gave them six options, namely: milk chocolate; White chocolate (the sweetness, calorie and taste are the same as milk chocolate, but it does not contain the unique ingredients of chocolate); Cocoa capsules containing special ingredients of chocolate; Placebo capsules; White chocolate and cocoa capsules; Nothing to eat. When they feel like eating chocolate, they will eat one of them and describe their "craving" before, after and 90 minutes later. The so-called "description of desire" is to draw a scale on a line with a length of 100 mm, in which the leftmost point means "I just noticed (I want to eat chocolate)" and the rightmost point means "I can't control it (I want to eat chocolate)", and the more I go to the right, the more greedy I get.
Each subject needs to complete all six samples at least once to become a valid sample. In the end, 34 volunteers met the requirements, of which 17 completed each sample twice. The statistical results show that:
1, if you don't eat anything, the craving values before eating, after eating and 90 minutes later are 70, 70 and 58 respectively;
2. Eating milk chocolate is 74, 16 and 13 respectively, which obviously shows the effect of chocolate to relieve craving;
3, white chocolate, the three greedy values are 70, 33, 28, it seems that although it is not as obvious as milk chocolate, it is still quite effective;
4. The three craving values of placebo capsules are 7 1, 65 and 52 respectively;
5. Interestingly, the three craving values of cocoa capsules containing unique ingredients of chocolate but lacking corresponding sweetness, taste and calories are 67, 66, 565 and 438+0, which are basically the same as those of placebo or those who eat nothing.
This shows that it is not the "active ingredient" in chocolate that relieves craving, but the sweetness, taste and calories it brings.
Of course, this experiment also has considerable limitations. In addition to the limited number of experiments, those who are too greedy are excluded, because they can't complete all the experimental requirements-mainly because the experiment has to complete all the samples at least once before the data is valid. A truly greedy person may not be able to finish the experiment. For example, he ate an invalid sample and could not eat anything else for 90 minutes.
In addition, because the unique flavor of chocolate needs cocoa ingredients to produce, the experiment cannot be double-blind. In other words, subjects can guess what they ate, which may also affect their description of cravings.