Welcome to the continuing diary series "Let's Read a WHEE Book Together!" This week, we're continuing with David Kessler's The End of Overeating, Chapter 17. If you're just discovering this diary series, you will find links to the previous installments at the bottom of this diary.
WHEE (Weight, Health, Eating and Exercise) is a community support diary for Kossacks who are currently or planning to start losing, gaining or maintaining their weight through diet and exercise or fitness. Any supportive comments, suggestions or positive distractions are appreciated. If you are working on your weight or fitness, please -- join us! You can also click the WHEE tag to view all diary posts.
The End of Overeating, by David Kessler, M.D.
Chapter 17: The Era of the Monster Thickburger
Chapter 17 continues Kessler's look at The Food Industry (part 2 of the book) by surveying a number of full-serve and fast-food restaurants, with particular emphasis on the use of fat.
According to the USDA, Americans are eating more of almost every kind of food - since the USDA started beating the low-fat drum in the mid-70s, we're eating 7 percent more meat, eggs, and nuts, 19 percent more sugars, 24 percent more vegetables, and 63 percent more fats and oils. According to Kessler, early human diets contained only 10 percent fats. Plainly, we've come a long way since then.
Kessler notes that fatty foods have been part of the American food landscape for a while, including items like thick milkshakes and the humble grilled cheese sandwich. However, high-fat restaurant meals and treats have become much more popular than ever before. Kessler first examines the offerings of several upmarket restaurants:
...the creamy rock shrimp tempura at an upmarket Japanese restaurant in Manhattan...was rolled in mayonnaise, fried in a sweetened tempura batter, then rolled again in spicy mayonnaise...
When I ordered dumplings with shrimp in a Peruvian restaurant, what arrived was more like a fried doughnut with fried cream cheese inside.
The sizzling calamari salad...at Chinois on Main, Wolfgang Puck's inventive Santa Monica restaurant...The chef threw breaded seafood into an enormous wok and deep-fried it in rice oil.
He then works down through a couple of college pizza and burger joints and Otis Spunkmeyer cookies before discussing McDonald's, Burger King, and Pizza Hut. A quick glance into the Grand Lux Café in Las Vegas is followed by mention of the Hardee's Monster Thickburger from the chapter title (1420 calories!), which is followed by IHOP's Stuffed French Toast, a serving of TGI Friday's Cup of Dirt (for the little gourmands), washed down with a Starbucks Strawberries & Crème Frappuccino ("...with whipped cream and eighteen teaspoons of sugar..."), and with a slice of Claim Jumper Chocolate Motherlode Cake for dessert (2150 calories / slice).
After this feast of "fat on fat on fat and sugar that's then layered with fat on sugar on sugar and served with fat, salt, and fat" (as Kessler describes IHOP's French Toast), he pushes back from the table to visit food industry consultant Gail Vance Civille:
Her expertise is sensory stimulation and food--the multitude of ways all five senses become engaged before, during, and after eating...
The sensory stimulation provoked by sugar, salt, and fat begins before we put food in our mouths and lasts after the food is gone, she said...
"Tell me how fat engages the senses. Why does the industry add so much of it to food?"
One reason, she responded, is that fat contributes to texture in many ways, giving food body, crunch, creaminess, or contrast. Fat makes food feel thicker and richer and "will contribute to a sense of fullness in the mouth."
It also promotes the release of flavor-enhancing chemicals...
Also, fat helps flavors merge and meld, creating a smooth sensation as it brings disparate ingredients together...
The lubricating properties of fat are also essential, because with them "the product disappears much more rapidly. It absorbs saliva better...and it disappears, you have a 'quick getaway,' a quick melt," she explained...If fat is removed from a product, it won't break down in the same way. Rather than melting, "You get little tiny globs of stuff suspended in saliva...If it's meant to melt, it better melt," said Civille. "That is critical to the nature of the product. It is critical to the pleasure of the product."
To illustrate how fat can enhance the multisensory appeal of a food, Kessler and Civille discuss the humble Snickers bar:
The Snickers bar, according to Civille, is "extraordinarily well engineered." While its flavor characteristics are appealing, she said, the real key to its success lies in its even disappearance and clean getaway. "When you eat a Snickers bar, the chocolate, the caramel, the nougat, and the peanuts all disappear at the same time..."
The genius of Snickers, explained Civille, is that as we chew, the sugar dissolves, the fat melts, and the caramel picks up the peanut pieces so the entire candy is carried out of the mouth at the same time.
At the end of the chapter, Kessler describes a conference presentation on the subject of "Basic and Clinical Science of Ingestion and Reward." The presenter described the "roller-coaster ride" of a cocaine and heroin "speedball" as an analogy to the enjoyment produced by a multisensory snack or meal offering. Kessler ends by asserting,
When we eat more ice cream because it has added chocolate chips, add creamy blue cheese dressing to fried chicken, or expect entertainment with a restaurant meal, we are in search of multisensory effects.
Previous chapters from The End of Overeating:
Part 2: The Food Industry
Chapter 16: That's Entertainment (written by Clio2)
Chapter 15: Cinnabon: A Lesson in Irresistibility (written by me)
Chapter 14: A Visit to Chili's (written by Clio2)
Part 1: Sugar, Fat, and Salt
Chapter 13: Eating Behavior Becomes a Habit (written by me)
(there are links to Chapters 1 through 12 in my Chapter 13 review)
Scheduled WHEE diaries:
October 25
Sun AM - Turtle Diary
Sun PM - kismet
October 26
Mon AM - NC Dem
Mon PM - ???
October 27
Tues AM - ??
Tues PM - Clio2 (Kessler, Ch. 18)
October 28
Weds AM - ???
Weds PM - Edward Spurlock
October 29
Thurs AM - A DC Wonk
Thurs PM - ???
October 30
Fri AM - ???
Fri PM ???
October 31
Sat AM - ???
Sat PM - Edward Spurlock (Kessler, Ch. 19