TW if orthorexia is something you've dealt with -- the write-up of this book could pull someone back into those thoughts.
The Dorito Effect is a very interesting book about pretty much what I said in the title. I would definitely recommend the information in it, though I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't up to just shrugging and thinking, "Screw him," when the author says some mean things about obesity. (I don't mean he says it's a health risk; I mean he is genuinely unkind about bodies of people in a few spots.) He also doesn't seem to understand that money is an issue for many shoppers. So I'd like to summarize a few bits of it here instead of necessarily recommending it without comment, as it seems very relevant to intuitive eating.
This book challenges the common narrative that humans are "calorie zombies" who eat and eat and eat fat/sugar-heavy, low-nutrition foods simply because that's what we're programmed to do. He vehemently disagrees that this is how we are programmed.
He starts unraveling that myth by talking about goats and babies. Goats, apparently, have got what he calls "body wisdom." If you get them phosphorus-deficient and then feed them a variety of foods, only some of which are high in phosphorus, they will go for the phosphorus-rich foods even if they didn't especially care for them before -- and then lose interest in those same foods upon returning to a healthy level of phosphorus. In fact, if you feed phosphorus-deficient goats something without phosphorus, but pump phosphorus into them immediately after they eat it, they will learn to eat more of that particular food until they are no longer phosphorous-deficient.
We are all aware that goats don't know what phosphorus is, or nutrient deficiency, and they certainly can't read nutritional labels. But their body notices what's in the food, and responds. This response affects their feelings and desires without requiring any intellectual reasoning along the way.
But do humans also have this capacity?
Yes, they do: babies with rickets (which includes a serious vitamin D deficiency) will suck down cod liver oil (lots of vitamin D) until the deficiency has been corrected. Babies, like goats, can't think their way through this; their body, however, is aware, and therefore causes them to crave the vitamin D rich stuff.
Why, this book asks, have so many people lost this ability?
The book basically lays it out like this:
- Flavor and nutrition are intimately
I like books that talk about things that you might not normally think about. I have read the dorito effect a couple of times. Thanks.
Cool Ranch!
That tortilla lesson
>!Drunk, 27 years old!<
give the people what they want you fucking cowards
I try to tell as lot of people of this and noone agrees with me, I've always hated certain types of cheeses and doritos has just the worst kind of flavor that I would never want to eat again.
Update: I just had an expectations vs reality dream. I dreamt that this post wouldβve gotten 33k upvotes lmao. Iβm addicted to Reddit.
-I am home alone.
-I decide it'd be a good idea to snort some fucking doritos.
-I go out and buy some doritos.
-I get home and open it up and pull out one dorito chip.
-I smash it down.
-I am excited.
-I am about to do a Pro Gamer move.
-I roll the paper.
-I snort it.
-Turns out i didn't smash it well enough.
-I run to the bathroom.
-I block one of my nostrils and exhale hard from the other.
-came out a huge snot and some of the smashed doritos.
-I am a fucking idiot.
