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Variety is one of the great promises of today’s food culture. After all, you wouldn’t want to get bored while nourishing yourself. The food options on supermarket shelves have increased exponentially in past decades, particularly where fat-rich, sugary, high-novelty, low-nutrition items are concerned. And while it is true that a spectrum of healthy foods is good for the body, when they are packed into the same meal it often causes over-consumption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Studies of human eating show that our appetite is partially governed by a mechanism called sensory-specific satiety (SSS). Our bodies get to feel fuller quicker if they are eating only one food. You know how it is, you’ve had a plate-load of meat and potatoes, and think you would burst if you had just one more fork-full… but then there’s pudding, and you can happily sink a bowlful of that. Somehow you’ve magically developed a second stomach. It is not only the taste of food that influences SSS. Variety in colour and shape also persuades us to eat more than we intended. People consume more sandwiches when offered three different fillings and more pasta when it comes in a variety of shapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These mechanisms were crucial in our hunter-gatherer days, when a pick’n’mix approach was essential for satisfying the full spectrum of our nutritional needs. Now we must act to prevent this urge causing death by novelty. You could take this non-variety thing too far, of course, and end up like the notorious vanished aristocrat, Lord Lucan, who ate lamb chops for lunch every day of his adult life (fried in winter, grilled in summer). But cooking simple, wholesome meals, packing a modest lunch, or putting only two foods on your buffet plate, all offer easy ways to control this instinct to over-consume.<\/p>\n\n\n\n