We’ve all said it, even if we regret it: “There’s always room for dessert.” Turns out, there is a scientific explanation for why we can consume so many sweets compared to other types of foods with a similar number of calories. For sweets, the threshold for satiety, which is triggered by the human appetite center in the ventromedial hypothalamus, is higher than any other flavor stimulants — meaning we can eat many more sugary foods than salty or savory ones.
Essentially, sugar is a vehicle that makes you able to eat more. And because sugars are added in everything from salad dressings to pasta sauce to bread and other processed foods, people tend to eat more of many things than they normally would — without that sugar throwing their satiety center out of whack, said Dr. D. L. Katz, the founding director of Yale University’s Prevention Research Center.
