I want you to think of a food that, when you see it or hear someone mention it, you immediately say “I can’t have that in the house. Whenever I buy it, I end up eating the entire package in a day!” We all have one.
This food is SO damn delicious to you. It’s your perfect snack food. The one you keep just for you. You might go so far as to say it’s addictive. You’ve heard it put into words before: “once you pop, you can’t stop.”
Now what if I told you the problem wasn’t your lack of self-control. The real reason that you can’t stop snacking isn’t because you lack some sort of elusive willpower. It really has nothing to do with you at all.
The truth is, snack foods are formulated to have this effect on you. This magic formula is called bliss point.
What is bliss point?
Food manufacturers (processed food manufacturers) carefully, meticulously, and to all of our demise, spend a lot of time and money finding the perfect combination of salt, sugar and fat that makes us unable to stop eating. It’s perfectly determined – not too high so that you’ve “had enough,” not too low so you only have a few and move on.
Adding a crunchy element to this salt + sweet + fat trio makes food simply craveable. I mean, it’s called BLISS point for crying out loud!
Why should you care about bliss point?
I make sure I tell my clients it’s important they know that food (really here I’m talking about processed foods) is a business. You do not need this type of food for good health so there has to be something that keeps you going back for more. Food companies want to make money and they’re going to do that by making sure you feel like you can’t live without their product.
Put simply: you should care about bliss point because it’s probably the reason you feel out of control around your favorite snack foods.
Now I’ll admit this seems kinda gloomy. Like, what are you supposed to do with this information now that you have it? Well, I think just knowing that bliss point exists takes some of the guilt away from you thinking that you have no self-control.
Second, this is something I work with my clients on extensively so there is room for improvement. We work on how to eat more satisfying meals so they aren’t turning to these foods to satisfy a need. We work on how to listen to hunger and fullness cues so there isn’t a lot of room for these foods in their everyday diet. We work on emotional eating (big trigger for consumption of these) and work on improving food quality in the diet.
So that out-of-control feeling you get when you’re elbow deep in a box of Cheez-Its? Now that you know why it’s happening, let’s regain control.