Variety

Isn’t variety a good thing?

Don’t we want to be eating a bunch of different foods from different food groups so we can get ALL of the micronutrients?

Nah.

At least, well, not really.

Yes, generally speaking, it’s great to go to the grocery store and mix up the things that you’re buying to eat. It does help with making sure that we aren’t micronutrient dense. It also makes sure that you don’t get sick of the exact same food every day.

But, if you’re someone who’s trying to work hard on not eating as much, you might want to give it a second thought. You see, increasing food variety is a potential contributor for the overeating crisis that North America is currently undergoing.

The reason for this is the concept of palate fatigue. Often times, eating the same meals, your palate will get sick of eating the same thing, so you’ll just stop. A dude can only eat so much chicken breast before he taps out.

But if it was just a matter of hunger stopping people from overeating, we wouldn’t have the obesity epidemic we have today, nor would we be asking for the dessert menu after finishing off our entire meals.

Yet, here we are.

The reason is because after we get sick of a certain food, we mix it up with a different flavour or taste for our tongue. Just ate something really savoury and fatty? Fine, let’s go with something sweet. Sick of that? Let’s get something salty!

It’s literally why buffets are the place you go to die when it comes to your success on a diet. Ask a hotdog competition eater continues to gorge down foot longs and they’ll tell you they order a side of french fries.

Variety is the spice of life, but it’s also an avenue to overeating as the average number of items in grocery stores went from 14,000 in 1980 to 44,000 in 2013. It’s why you can get Oreos in more flavours than there are months of the year.

So do we kill variety? No, not necessarily. But, it might mean it’s making sure the variety is in whole foods grown from the earth, not the type of Doritos you’re having for dinner.

Capiche?