Flavor-Calorie Learning: Root Beer Floats
After having guests over for dinner, my friend Carl Willat realized he had the ingredients for a root-beer float: Haagen-Daz vanilla ice cream and A&W root beer. He hadn’t thought about root beer floats in years. He made one. The next day he made another one. He ran out of root beer, bought some more. The day after that, another one. They seemed to taste better and better each day. He ran out of ice cream, bought some more. The next day, another root-beer float. The next day, another one. Toward the end of the week, he found himself thinking: When am I going to have one tomorrow? He had to force himself to stop buying ice cream and root beer, and after a while he didn’t think about them anymore.
At the heart of the theory behind the Shangri-La Diet is the idea that we learn to associate flavors (more precisely, smells) with calories. Here is a vivid example.
I’ve noticed this learning with liquor. A few months ago I bought my first bottle of rum — to flavor yogurt. Sometimes I drank the rum without yogurt, and it tasted better and better.
June 3rd, 2011 at 5:50 am
An interesting experiment might be to try to learn to like something that you currently don’t like. Cucumbers for example in my case. According to this model, If I pair cucumbers with a source of calories like yougrt and eat them on a regular basis this way, I should start to like them.
June 3rd, 2011 at 7:21 am
@John,
I’m not sure it would — yogurt is fairly bland (unless it’s particularly sour) as are cucumbers. The flavor might not be strong enough to trigger the association.
June 3rd, 2011 at 8:11 am
Add chopped fresh mint to the cucumber and yogurt.
June 3rd, 2011 at 8:27 am
Buy decent bread and just make cucumber sandwiches. Yum, yum.
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Eat pickles instead of cucumbers? That might add enough flavor to start the association?
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:38 pm
John W, yes, this should work. You could also sprinkle the cucumbers with sugar — that should make you like the smell of cucumbers. Several years ago I heard of an experiment that did just that: caused people to like vegetables more by adding sugar. The preference remained after the sugar was removed.
June 3rd, 2011 at 4:08 pm
what matters is the strength of the smell. Saltiness, sweetness, and sourness don’t count.
June 3rd, 2011 at 6:49 pm
How does this square with foodies– people who are generally up for trying new flavors?
June 4th, 2011 at 10:01 am
I think trying new flavors helps you be thin.
June 6th, 2011 at 5:42 am
Have you checked this theory on foodies? I’m one of those people who has a streak of “I’ve never heard of that, let me try it”, and I’m moderately fat. I grant that I don’t get new flavors that often, but mere newness (as distinct from something like strong bitterness, which I simply don’t like) is fun rather than off-putting.