Proof that crisps are as addictive as hard drugs
BRITAIN is a nation of snackers. We spend more than £2.8 billion a year on snack foods –from crisp sand nuts to popcorn – eating them on average seven times a week.
We buy four times more crisps than the French and Italians, and this might in part explain our national weight problem: more than 26 per cent of the population is now obese, the highest in any European country.
For many of us, including me, a bag of crisps is something we reach for on a regular basis when in a rush, stressed or just out of habit. As part of my new Channel 4 documentary Secrets Of Our Favourite Snacks, I and my co- presenter, TV chef Simon Rimmer, sought to find out why.
For seven days, I kept a snack diary. In one week, I ate five bags of crisps. I once had a bag of Wotsits instead of dinner. Even when I was not hungry, and just doing a normal food shop, I could not resist grabbing some crisps as I wandered through the supermarket.
The answer to why I – and millions of others – find savoury snacks so irresistible maybe deeply ingrained in the brain, as I found out during a visit to Imperial College, London.
Neuroscientist Dr Tony Goldstone has been carrying out research into what makes us crave certain foods – and has found similarities in the brains of snack-lovers and drugaddicts. Dr Goldstone and his team are investigating what effect the hormones we produce in the stomach – which control hunger and how much we eat – have on the brain.
Volunteers who were either obese or overweight were shown pictures of junk food – including crisps – while their brains were scanned.
The team found that the same areas in the brain that respond when an alcoholic sees a bottle of wine or a drug-addict sees cocaine reacted with similar i ntensity when the overweight volunteers saw pictures of high-energy foods such as crisps.
The areas of t he brain t hat responded t o such foods also responded more strongly than when shown images of healthy foods such as vegetables or fish.
Dr Goldstone explained that this is because they are much more pleasant, palatable and motivating to eat, because our brains have evolved to crave the foods that gave us energy. Useful if you are a caveman – but not if you are a well-fed 21st Century Brit.
As part of the documentary, we left volunteers alone in a room with unlimited snacks for one hour. While a few nibbled, many went to town on the bowls, eating the equivalent of five or six packs in that time.
Marion Hetherington, Professor of Biopsychology at Leeds University, who specialises in human appetite, explained that when it comes to savoury snacks, research has found that we will eat until the bag is finished, no matter if it is big or small.
In particular, if we are distracted, say reading a book, watching TV or at the cinema, we do not notice how much we are eating.
This was true of our volunteers, who were shocked to find out how much they had eaten while mindlessly snacking from a bowl when reading or being on their phones.
So be warned – when you buy that sharing bag, like me, you may find yourself eating it all.
Secrets Of Our Favourite Snacks is on Channel 4 on Tuesday at 8pm.