Food Palatability

People eat for many reasons. We eat for pleasure, out of boredom, to adhere to a diet plan, and most obviously because of hunger.

Hunger is an essential signal for the maintenance of life. However, during fat loss and muscle gain periods, its management can become an issue.

During fat loss diets, hunger increases, making it difficult to limit food intake. On the other hand, on muscle gain diets, hunger can almost disappear, making it difficult to get in all the food needed for weight gain.

In either case, understanding and managing hunger can improve the success of diets and minimize stress. Let's see how food palatability can help.

Food Palatability

Palatability is the pleasure provided by foods.

Food palatability ranges from low to high. Foods with high palatability are more tasty and attractive. Conversely, foods with low palatability are more bland and boring.

For example, this is a list of carbohydrate sources ranked by palatability:

Similar lists could be made for protein sources, fat sources, or even whole meals.

Palatability can affect hunger and the desire to eat more or less food. This is well explained by the food palatability reward hypothesis.

The Food Palatability Reward Hypothesis

The food palatability reward hypothesis (FPRH) explains a very intuitive concept.

When food is tasty (high palatability), we tend to want to eat more of it.

Conversely, when food is plain and boring (low palatability), we tend to have less desire for it.

Although this might seem obvious, the implications for dieting are often underrecognized.

Food Palatability and Calorie Density

Food palatability has also an interesting relationship with calorie density.

Highly palatable foods like chips and cookies are also high calorie density and low volume. This means you can eat less of them for equivalent calorie amounts.

Conversely, less palatable foods like plain oatmeal and vegetables are also low calorie density and high volume. This means you can eat more of them for equivalent calorie amounts.

This, combined with the FPRH, gives us some pretty useful tools to make dieting easier both during fat loss and muscle gain.

Food Palatability and Fat Loss Diets

Under hypocaloric conditions, hunger and cravings increase making adherence to a diet more difficult to accomplish.

In this case, food palatability can be used as a hunger management strategy.

Tasty foods will often leave us unsatisfied and craving for more, making it harder to stick to a fat loss diet. If we then add the lack of fullness from the portions allowed in a caloric deficit, we've got a recipe for disaster.

Limiting or avoiding highly palatable foods, and consuming lower palatability ones instead, can make fat loss diet adherence much easier.

It is much harder to overeat brown rice, broccoli and chicken than it is pizza or ice cream. Even a very tasty dressing on your salad might leave you wanting more, whereas finishing the unseasoned version could leave you feeling full.

Less palatable foods have the added bonus of having lower calorie density, higher volume and higher fiber content. All these will help with increasing satiety and fullness after meals.

Altering cooking methods and limiting flavorings can help make foods even more bland and less interesting to eat.

Food Palatability and Muscle Gain Diets

Muscle gain dieting has an opposite set of problems. Building muscle requires eating more food than is needed to maintain body weight, which usually means more food than we might want to eat.

In this case, food palatability can be used as a hunger promotion strategy.

Highly palatable foods often have higher calorie density, lower volume, and lower fiber content, which makes them less filling. Plus, because they taste so good, they tend to make you want to eat more of them. This combination is perfect for sustaining a caloric surplus.

Altering cooking methods and adding flavorings can help make foods even tastier and easier to eat.

Some occasional junk food can also be a good idea, especially towards the end of the muscle gain phase when eating is particularly difficult.

Individualizing the Process

You don't have to use any of these strategies if you don't want to.

Some people will fail their fat loss diet if they have no tasty foods every now and again, while others perfer to avoid them completely to limit cravings and maximize portions size.

Coversely, some people will struggle getting in all the needed calories without adding some junk food, while others will stick to clean foods only and simply alter cooking methods and flavorings.

You can use these techniques from the get go, not at all, or maybe in increasing amounts across a given diet phase as you see fit.

Conclusions

Hunger management strategies can be very helpful for both fat loss and muscle gain periods.

During fat loss diets, eating foods low in palatability can help limiting calories while at the same time decreasing cravings and hunger.

During muscle gain diets, eating tastier foods can help getting in all the necessary calories when fullness or lack of desire to eat can become impediments.

The techniques for reducing or promoting hunger can be used in increasing amounts across a given diet phase, but no more than needed for best comfort and adherence. They should be utilized to the extent that they're helpful, and not just on principle.