You know what I mean?

Like, you've had one bite and their whole burrito is like gone?

What are you doing, man?

Did you even taste it?

Turns out, she probably didn't.

Hey there, foodies. Trace here for DNews. Thanks for tuning in.

Food is incredible. I love it. I love to eat it, I love to cook it, I love to shop (for) the ingredients!

There's nothing worse than spending hours shopping, prepping, cooking, and serving, just to have somebody scarf the whole thing in three bites.

And a new study confirms what I knew in my little foodie heart… people who eat super fast, don't actually taste their food, not really.

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences under

the appetizing title, "Optimal directional volatile transport in retronasal olfaction,"

because science, while great at mise en place, has no sense of presentation. Translating

the title into layman: they wanted to know how smells got to our nose, from the outside

or the INSIDE. And their study found, the latter was actually more important. Our tongue

tastes five (maybe six) flavors, but food can have any number of smells to add to those

perceptions!

Using a model of the human mouth, throat and nasal cavities, researchers found when we

inhale through the nose, we create an "air curtain" which keeps volatile -- or airborne

-- molecules from going into the lungs. But, when we exhale, food volatiles trapped in

the back of the throat swirl upward into the nasal cavity, where we sense them with our

olfactory systems!

If you eat fast, the air curtain doesn't form, the volatiles don't have time to get trapped

in the back of your throat, and thus you don't smell and taste together!

There's definitive science for slowing down to savor a meal, for sure.

Sometimes, you just want a good scarf, a satisfying guzzling of comforting carbohydrates can make

us feel really good once in a rare while, but making a habit of it is the dangerous.

This MAY be supported by a 2006 study of nearly 5000 people in the Journal of Epidemiology

which found, the rate of food intake heavily correlated with rate of obesity!

And another study in the Journal of American Dietetic Association discovered, when people

eat fast, they take in more calories, but feel less satisfaction from their meal!

If you look at how complicated our alimentary canal really is, this makes more than a mouthful

of sense.

The stomach is a highly connected organ in the human body. It has a direct connection

along the vagus nerve right to the brain stem. When you put food in your belly, the stomach

has mucosa and muscles which detect the mechanical feel and overall volume of food, as well as

how much the stomach compressed or stretched. When it's empty, a hormone called ghrelin

is secreted -- called the hunger hormone, to trigger appetite. Once you eat, the stomach

stretches, and ghrelin is suppressed; causing your vagus nerve to signal your brain stem…

and that signal tells the intestinal train to get moving!

Obviously, this is SUPER simplified, there are hormones, enzymes and nerves being tripped

and squirted all over the tube running through the middle of your body, but like that corn

you ate yesterday… let's try to get through this in one piece.

Next, food moves into the intestine and another hormone called leptin comes into the picture.

Leptin is one piece of the nutrient satiation puzzle, the idea that what you're eating has

fulfilled your body's nutritional requirement. Scientists don't entirely understand the whole

thing, but they know, as food continues through the system, the ileum, colon and rectum will

cause secretion of MORE hormones called PYY. A 2006 study found, when mice were deprived

of PYY, they wouldn't control their intake, and became obese!

So scientists figure, PYY (along with all these other hormones, nerves and triggers)

eventually work together to tell your brain OKAY Y'ALL. WE'RE GOOD DOWN HERE. STOP EATING.

[[whew!!]]

Complicated, no?

It's important to be cognizant of the fact, humans are not robots. Many people try and

control every aspect of their lives, including eating to take in calories, but being mindful

of WHAT you're eating, is just as important as HOW you're eating. When we eat like a machine,

our body doesn't have time to suppress or secrete these myriad of compounds, or trigger

these processes. It takes time for this sack of meat to know when it's got food in it!

So, science says it's best to eat slowly. You'll taste your food better, you'll decrease

your portion sizes, and feel better about what you've eaten!

You might even lose weight!

Don't eat TOO slow… if you eat so slow that you stop eating altogether you'd eventually

die. Eventually… ever curious about what would happen in between?

So was I!

How long could we survive without food or water?

Don't worry, we DNewsed it.

Do you eat fast?

Why?

Don't tell me you're punching your brother or sister for a seat at the table. Think about

it for a second and answer with something introspective, why do you think eat at the

speed you eat?