I notice everyone (including myself) tossing around the term hyperpalatable when referring to addictive foods when what we really should be say is hypersalient.
Just to review, if we go back to
Berridge, there are three components of reward:
- Liking or hedonic impact, often referred to as palatability in food.
- Wanting or incentive salience.
- Learning.
Addictive foods aren't better tasting, as we all know, just the opposite. Fresh grilled fish tastes way better than potato chips, but once you've had your fill of grilled fish you are done, ready to step away from the table. But...there's always room for dessert. Is that because dessert tastes better? Is it the liking aspect of dessert that drives us to eat when we are full, or the wanting aspect? Actually dessert might be a bad example because I can think of a lot of desserts that actually do taste pretty awesome. That's sort of the whole point.
However when it comes to addictive processed foods like potato chips or Cheetos, those things don't really taste that good, certainly not as good as a filet mignon steak, they are simply addictive. So it would be a mistake to refer to Pringles as hyperpalatable, they are hypersalient.
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