Does low-nutrient food make us hungry?

Michael Pollan brings up an interesting theory of Bruce Ames' (a Berkley biochemist) in his book, In Defense of Food.

"Ames also believes, although he hasn't proven it yet, that micronutrient deficiencies may contribute to obesity. His hypothesis is that a body starved of critical nutrients will keep eating in the hope of obtaining them. The absence of these nutrients from the diet may counteract the normal feeling of satiety after sufficient calories are eaten and that such an unrelenting hunger may be a biological strategy for obtaining missing nutrients."

"If Ames is right, then a food system organized around quantity rather than quality has a destructive feedback loop built into it, such as that the more low-quality food one eats, the more one wants to eat, in a futile - but highly profitable - quest for the absent nutrient."

We all know that eating a lot of junk is not good for us anyway in other ways - the lack of nutrients itself, the sugar spike, the lack of fibre, the other chemical additives. But does anyone think that lack of nutrients itself actually causes (or increases) hunger?

I myself think it's plausible - although it would be hard to prove it wasn't one of the other reasons that makes junk food have low satiety value.

I absolutely agree that food low in nutrients is a big cause of overeating.   It's why I'll often suggest to people here (teenagers especially) that they should try to 'eat better' rather than simply 'eat less'.  A low-cal diet of poor quality foods is hell on wheels.....hunger, lack of nutrition, unsatisfying...  and a big cause of why so many people give up. 

Bodies need nourishment and will send us to find it ......Ames may not have proved it in a laboratory but it's basic common sense.   I know from personal experience that I'll occasionally get cravings for certain foods when my diet has been lacking.   There is a condition called 'pica'... where severe nutrition deficiencies cause people to end up eating all kinds of non-foods in an effort to make up mineral shortages - coal, ice, chalk.

So if your diet is made up of low-quality foods (and I'd include a lot of 'diet' products in that definition) and you're not limited by finances or access then you'll overeat in an effort to get more nourishment.  And since low-quality foods often = high-calorie foods = unsatisfying foods, you get the worst of all worlds... overeating, weight-gain and poor health.

Sounds completely plausible to me.  It would be a sensible biological mechanism for us to have evolved, considering that up until fairly recently, it was nearly impossible to overdose on calories the way we can now: the energy expense of gathering/hunting food required that we eat a lot, and a little bit of extra hunger would be unlikely to send us into a tailspin of obesity symptoms. 

Although I know it has not yet been proven, I must admit that I do believe this to be true. 

I completely agree with this. 

I realized in the past, when I would go through my "eat everything edible in the house" phases, that I was craving one specific food, and would just stay ravenously hungry until I happened across whatever it was.  I would crave huge amounts of cereal, probably because it's fortified with vitamins and minerals that I was not getting enough of in my diet.

Now I try to be much more aware of what my body is craving and very rarely have that urge to keep eating. 

I absolutely believe that our bodies know what they need, and sometimes our brains just don't get the message properly!  And I think some people are hardwired to understand their bodies' needs more clearly than others.  The rest of us have to train ourselves.

I totally agree. The foods that I eat that are processed don't fill me up, but if I have whole grain foods with protein and fiber still included, I'm fine.

I believe it.

I believe it as well.  Whole foods with lots of nutrients fill me up better then processed foods ever did.

That's why many people are morbidly obese and malnourished.

Original Post by mperic81:

I totally agree. The foods that I eat that are processed don't fill me up, but if I have whole grain foods with protein and fiber still included, I'm fine.

I totally agree with you, but Ames point is that lack of nutrients, not lack of protein or fibre, is a cause of hunger in itself...

I think the food industry has a lot to answer for. Advertising low-fat, low-calorie, fortified food is easy because they can use a lot of cheap, low nutrient ingredients and sell it at a much higher price. But for the food industry to sell real nutritious food (as opposed to the farce of fortification) would be a lot more expensive, and therefore less profitable.

I also think it's sad how the agriculture, food, medicine/drug industries and government are all in such a mutually beneficial symbiosis that none of them are willing to step up to the plate on this issue.

Original Post by cellophane_star:

That's why many people are morbidly obese and malnourished.

That's such an unnatural occurence, it's frightening. No other time in history have we had both of those problems in the same person at once.

Original Post by merylwhite1:

for the food industry to sell real nutritious food (as opposed to the farce of fortification) would be a lot more expensive, and therefore less profitable.

 

You're right in one way... it would be (and indeed it is) more expensive to buy nutritious factory-produced food.  However, if you don't use the 'food industry' to provide your food and instead make it yourself, it's incredibly cheap and the nutrition content goes up exponentially.

Whilst price comes into it, what we've actually traded is 'time' for 'nourishment'...  The words 'fat' and 'lazy' are good partners because we'd rather wait five minutes for something to heat up in an oven than spend twenty-five minutes peeling, chopping and cooking..... hence we're at the mercy of whatever manufacturers choose to throw in a packet. 

It's sad that the poorest people in 21st century Western societies are often the heaviest and the least well-nourished.  Those people, in the past, might not have had an excellent diet but they'd have known how to put together a simple bean stew.... or make a soup from a ham-bone.... 'soul food' or 'peasant food'.  Cheap ingredients, nourishing outcome.   Whereas today those basic skills have largely gone and someone trying save a few £s/$s on the household budget instead opts for the 'buy one get one free' frozen pizza.

I don't blame the food industry for peddling their products at us.  But the ads that make me wince are the ones along the lines of 'too busy to grate cheese?', 'not enough time to cook a potato?', 'want to get 5-a-day the convenient way?'   That steady drip-drip-drip message that we're 'too busy' to make a simple meal has changed behavour for the worse.

Original Post by gi-jane:

I don't blame the food industry for peddling their products at us.  But the ads that make me wince are the ones along the lines of 'too busy to grate cheese?', 'not enough time to cook a potato?', 'want to get 5-a-day the convenient way?'   That steady drip-drip-drip message that we're 'too busy' to make a simple meal has changed behavour for the worse.

I don't blame the food industry for selling us food, but I do think some of their advertising is incredibly misleading - that they have made so many processed junk foods out to be healthy and nutritious, when they really aren't. It doesn't help that these companies are supported by organisations like the Heart Foundation giving out "healthy choice" ticks in return for cash, and the government for allowing health claims of dubious origin, especially where the research was paid for by the food company itself.

One might also argue that if the government was giving more funding to organisations like the Heart Foundation in the first place, they wouldn't have to go begging to food companies for cash in the first place... And if fewer people thought junk food was healthy and bought less of it, the government might spend less on medical bills in the long run.

I do agree that we can escape most of the hype by simply not buying these products. But I've found myself checking the ingredient labels of things that look straight-forward, like plain yoghurt or cheese, because it can be pretty hard to tell sometimes what is real food and what isn't.