Why does bad food taste good and good food tastes bad?

Question

Why can't lettuce and bran taste as awesome as pizza and chips?

Answer 1

Because it's like something that you're supposed to abstain from. Kinda like how we almost always choose the bad boy over the nice guy. =P*

Answer 2

It does if you get used to it. Eventually it will all taste good. Maybe you have to adapt your taste buds slowly.
For instance, have you ever had spinach on pizza or lasagna? Take your lettuce for instance, just put alot on a hamburger or turkey sandwich... You'll start to like it. Bran, just add that to pizza or chips... uh, yeah, I don't like bran so I can't help you there. But maybe if you start with a bran muffin... and ease your way into these foods, you will actually change your taste...
I've done it myself... In fact that's kind of how babies start. You always start with apple sauce as the first food. then you slowly mix the carrots and the apple, to start vegetables... Same con--cept..You are conning your taste buds...

Answer 3

We have allowed Corporations to design our nutrition with the sole purpose of making a profit. With that in mind, they have created "foods" that can be easily and cheaply duplicated. Healthy foods require more money and space to cultivate. Where as unhealthy foods can be mass produced more cheaply.

The phrase "taste good" or "taste bad" is all based on what your brain believes to be true. For taste is 100% relative. For in some countrys "dog" taste good, but our American brains would not allow us to fathom the thought of eating a dog.

So if you took a 28 day rest from all television and advertisements, and refused to eat any advertised products, u would soon find pleasure in the simple basic foods that were placed here for us in God's original creation.

Answer 4

There are lots of foods that are good for you that taste good. Many of the same benefits can be found in very different tasting foods. You just have to read up on the nutritional values of foods you like and compare them with foods you don't like. You'll be surprised to find many you like have similar nutrition values as things you don't like. Maybe the web site, nutrition.gov would be of help.

Answer 5

Here's the reason.

Humans have developed to consume what naturally tastes good. The introduction of MSGs and artifical flavors and ingredients fools the body. Thsi is not good.

Humans crave fatty foods, because in early times (ancestors), food was harder to come by. We haven't lost that trait, yet.

Answer 6

Well, one of the answerers is close to what I was going to suggest ("Humans crave fatty foods, because in early times (ancestors), food was harder to come by. We haven't lost that trait, yet.")

I'll elaborate:

Not even all that long ago, our lifespan was shorter and we had to expend a LOT of energy (aka calories) just to survive. PLUS, food was not always available (hey, there are still places like this in our world today...).
Thus, It makes sense that our body would crave very **energy-dense**, **easy-energy** food in those circumstance:

Energy dense: Fat is very energy dense nutrient. One gram of fat contains over TWICE the kcals as a gram of protein or carbohydrate.
Easy Energy: Simple carbohydrates (candies, pastries, etc) are quick to metabolize and give us a quick, readily accessible supply of 'energy' (kcal) after eating.

So, if our forefathers required a lot of energy to sustain themselves through their days AND they didn't have a ton of food available, it was an advantage for our bodies to "ask for" (ie prefer, crave, favour) foods like pizza, burgers, fries, icecream, candy, baked goods. Mmmmore kcals!!

ALSO, since they were very active AND they weren't living very long anyways, they weren't really too concerned about the diseases that are predominately among the aging/elderly population (i.e. various cancers, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, dementia, etc). We eat 'healthy' food because we know that it reduces our risks for these diseases AND healthy food is generally LESS energy dense (more grams of food, fewer kcals) which is good because most of us are hunched over a computer or lounging on the couch and aren't burning those kcals!

Hope that helps make some sense of why we seem to crave the 'bad food'...

Cheers :)

Answer 7

I suppose we can look at it as a way to develop discipline in our lives. Go ahead and eat pizza and chips in small quantities, but eat dark green lettuce and bran in larger quantities. :-D

Answer 8

Cow intestines in Argentina - they have a dish stated as carne asada, which isn't comparable to what Taco Bell serves. this is incredibly all factors of the cow...kidneys, brains, and so on. The intestines have been salty and squishy, no longer situation-free to bite too! something became into especially sturdy nevertheless.

Answer 9

we've been spoiled, our taste buds are so highly developped from generations of good eatin' we can't appreaciate the simple flavors any longer

plus the steroids and chemicals they put in food have an adictive effect, that you can only get from eating foods with preservatives and dyes, and SUGAR!!!

Answer 10

Because it is easy to eat good food. Nothing that is worth doing is easy. That goes for everything else in life, why not food?