Is eating dessert and drinking milk tea really packed into another stomach?

　　A freshly baked pizza, a slow-fired fluffy pancake... When you're too full, someone asks, "Would you like some more dessert?" Your eyes may widen and you grin: "Well, for dessert, you can still have a little more."

　　This is what we often call the "dessert stomach", and it doesn't seem to be the same stomach that we eat for dinner?

A recent article published in a medical journal specifically demonstrated the existence of this "sweet stomach".

　　Note, however, that the so-called "dessert stomach" doesn't actually exist.

It's just a humorous way of saying it from scientists.

As for the fact that we can "have more desserts" when we are overwhelmed, there are actually other reasons.

　　There is a professional term called "sensory-specific satiety"

　　How do you know you're full?

It's certainly not because food fills your stomach.

This bodily mechanism of "satiety" actually resides in your brain - the brain that controls almost all of our bodily functions.

　　Specifically, the thing that senses "fullness" is located in the hypothalamus part of the brain.

It also acts as a "control center" for "hunger."

　　When you gobble up pizza, the food travels down your esophagus through your mouth and ends up in your stomach.

As you eat more and more, the pizza starts to fill your stomach, which expands, which is then detected by surrounding "stretch receptors," which then send signals to your hypothalamus via the vagus nerve.

When the signals reach the hypothalamus, they trigger a "fullness meter": if you keep eating, your fullness will rise, making you feel like you "can't hold more."

When this command reaches the highest index, you stop eating.

That's because, in addition to general "fullness," there's an additional set of "meters" in your brain that measure "sensory-specific satiety."

　　What is sensory-specific satiety?

　　Food has a variety of sensory properties: sweet, salty, crunchy, oily, smooth, spicy, chewy, tender, sour, hot, cold, greasy, juicy, crisp, crunchy, and more.

For each sensory trait, you have a specific satiety meter.

That is, your brain not only keeps track of how full your stomach is, it also measures how much greasy food you eat, how much salty food you eat, how much sweet food you eat, etc.

When you're full on pizza, it's usually not because you're actually eating a lot, but because specific sensory satiety meters in your brain are telling you that you've eaten enough greasy and salty food.

In other words, your brain is fed up with foods with pizza-like properties.

　　However, at this point when you look at a completely different food, like chocolate cake, whose organoleptic properties have nothing to do with pizza, then your appetite suddenly returns - because your sweetness meter is still " Empty", then you will naturally have room in your stomach for dessert.

　　Aside from the sensory "fullness", there's an additional reason behind the incredible act of having just finished six slices of pizza and yet still be able to eat a piece of cake: Your stomach does make room for more food space.

　　The stomach is made up of muscle walls, and when your brain expects new food, it sends a command to your stomach to relax.

And your stomach, upon receiving this command, relaxes and swells like a big head fish emerging from the deep sea, and it does increase its volume to hold more food.

　　So, while you're secretly loosening your belt, your stomach is quietly doing the same thing.

　　This special feeling is one of the things that makes you overeating

　　Unlike pandas, humans do not rely on just one food to survive.

Humans are omnivores and we need a varied diet to maintain all the nutrients our bodies need.

Thus, our ancestors evolved this "sensory-specific satiety" -- those cavemen who ate only one food could die from malnutrition, while those with sensory-specific satiety thrived.

　　So, sensory-specific satiety is so important to us that it's completely subconscious.

It can manifest even in people with amnesia who may not remember what their last meal was or whether they actually ate it.

Let the amnesiac let go of the sandwich as much as possible, then offer them a second meal after they forget what they just ate, and if they eat the sandwich, they will still eat a lot less than anything else, then It's the meter in the body telling their body, "We don't want to eat this food anymore."

　　As a subconscious mind, a specific feeling of satiety seems to protect us from eating too much of the same type of food.

However, this is not entirely the case.

Because our brains are really easy to be "fooled".

　　In another experiment, the researchers had testers eat smart beans of the same color—say, red.

Then, not long after, they were given more smart beans, which all had the same taste, texture, and smell.

Strangely, on the second serving of smart beans, the testers ate slightly more beans of other colors than the red ones—their sensory-specific satiety was "fooled" by the artificial food coloring.

Our brains may assume that if something has a different color, it will also have a different nutritional value.

So when we see more colorful smarts, Skittles, donuts, and plates full of ice cream, we appear hungrier than we actually are.

Because our brains see all this and say, "Better stay hungry so we can get nutrients from each color."

　　To make matters worse, modern industrial junk food has been designed to have a variety of textures, flavors and colors that stimulate our taste buds as much as possible and make us eat more.

　　How can I overcome it and make myself eat less?

　　Since how much you can eat depends largely on how quickly your brain gets bored with the food in front of you, is there a way to ensure your brain gets bored faster so you don't eat as much?

Of course there is a way.

　　First, avoid buffets.

With so much variety on offer in a buffet, you'll eat more than usual even if your goal isn't to bankrupt the restaurateur; second, don't use sauces and other condiments.

Or at least just stick to the same condiment or sauce.

If you serve a plate of french fries with ketchup followed by a plate of french fries dipped in mayonnaise, you're sure to eat more; third, small bites.

Put away your big spoon and eat with a teaspoon or chopsticks.

Studies have shown that bite size and how many sips affect your satiety, as sensory-specific satiety doesn't measure how much of a particular food gets into your stomach, but how many mouthfuls you eat; finally, Remember to eat slowly and don't gobble it.

This prolongs the oral exposure of the food you eat, and you'll get bored and stop eating too much.

In addition, by eating slowly, you also allow other mechanisms to kick in that prevent further stuffing of your stomach, such as extra gut stretch receptors and a flood of chemical signals from the gut.

　　By now, you should be able to understand why you can always have dessert?

It's just because your brain is fed up with the staple after you've eaten it, but your appetite is still restored as soon as another thing with a different texture, color, taste, and shape is put in front of you.

　　(Source: Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences)