Chapter 26
Survival Rewards
People Affected: everyone
Specific Sensations: pleasing taste, pleasing odor, pleasing scenery, warmth
Sensory Triggers: food or the places where food is found
Mental Effect: positive
Key Feature: the more concentrated the stimuli, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect fades with repeated short-term exposure
Physical Effect: salivation
Specific Sensations: pleasing taste, pleasing odor, pleasing scenery, warmth
Sensory Triggers: food or the places where food is found
Mental Effect: positive
Key Feature: the more concentrated the stimuli, the stronger the effect
Key Feature: effect fades with repeated short-term exposure
Physical Effect: salivation
Purpose
Survival rewards encourage everyone to eat and live near food.
Sensory Triggers
Pleasing taste is triggered by the taste of food. Four pleasing tastes have been identified so far: sweet, salty, fatty and umami. Sweet is triggered by fruit. Salty is triggered by salt and marine seafood. Fatty taste is triggered by food with lipids, like hamburgers and fries. Umami or savory taste is triggered by foods with free glutamates, like parmesan cheese or tomatoes. Umami is more pleasing when combined with salt, which makes ketchup and soy sauce popular condiments.
Pleasing odor is triggered by the smell of food. Flavor is the combination of pleasing taste and pleasing odor which is triggered as food travels over your tongue and releases odors upwards into your nasal cavity. There are numerous pleasing flavors because there are numerous pleasing odors, not because there are numerous tastes. The importance of odor can be noticed during a cold. Food has little flavor when your nose is congested.
Pleasing odor can also be triggered by the smell of places where food is found. We enjoy perfumes because they smell like flowers. Flowers grow where fruit is found.
Pleasing scenery is triggered by the sight of places where food is found. We pay premiums for real estate that faces water and green spaces. We put windows in our walls to see outside vegetation. If we cannot see outside vegetation, we bring vegetation inside or hang landscape paintings on the walls.
Warmth is triggered by sunlight. Sunlight enables your skin to produce vitamin D, another type of food you need to consume. People enjoy warmth when they sunbathe.
Warmth and warming up are different. Warming up feels good because it stops cold, a type of pain.
Water and oxygen do not trigger a pleasing taste or pleasing odor. Water is not food. Oxygen is food, but is consumed involuntarily.
Mental Effect
Survival rewards encourage everyone to eat and live near food.
Sensory Triggers
Pleasing taste is triggered by the taste of food. Four pleasing tastes have been identified so far: sweet, salty, fatty and umami. Sweet is triggered by fruit. Salty is triggered by salt and marine seafood. Fatty taste is triggered by food with lipids, like hamburgers and fries. Umami or savory taste is triggered by foods with free glutamates, like parmesan cheese or tomatoes. Umami is more pleasing when combined with salt, which makes ketchup and soy sauce popular condiments.
Pleasing odor is triggered by the smell of food. Flavor is the combination of pleasing taste and pleasing odor which is triggered as food travels over your tongue and releases odors upwards into your nasal cavity. There are numerous pleasing flavors because there are numerous pleasing odors, not because there are numerous tastes. The importance of odor can be noticed during a cold. Food has little flavor when your nose is congested.
Pleasing odor can also be triggered by the smell of places where food is found. We enjoy perfumes because they smell like flowers. Flowers grow where fruit is found.
Pleasing scenery is triggered by the sight of places where food is found. We pay premiums for real estate that faces water and green spaces. We put windows in our walls to see outside vegetation. If we cannot see outside vegetation, we bring vegetation inside or hang landscape paintings on the walls.
Warmth is triggered by sunlight. Sunlight enables your skin to produce vitamin D, another type of food you need to consume. People enjoy warmth when they sunbathe.
Warmth and warming up are different. Warming up feels good because it stops cold, a type of pain.
Water and oxygen do not trigger a pleasing taste or pleasing odor. Water is not food. Oxygen is food, but is consumed involuntarily.
Mental Effect
Survival rewards vary with a stimuli’s concentration. The higher the concentration, the stronger the positive effect. The higher a food’s sugar content, the more pleasing it tastes. The more lush the scenery, the more pleasing it appears.
Survival rewards fade with repeated short-term exposure. The first taste of food triggers the strongest effect. The second taste triggers a weaker effect than the first and so on. This short-term fading discourages eating too much.
Modern Eating
Increased flavor variety has contributed to overeating.
In the past, we only ate a few flavors. After a few mouthfuls, meals were not pleasing. We kept eating to avoid hunger, not to enjoy pleasing taste.
Today’s greatly expanded variety of flavors makes meals enjoyable from start to finish. As soon as one flavor stops triggering pleasing taste, we switch to a new flavor. After the appetizer and main course, everyone always has room for dessert.
We exercise more than necessary so we can eat more than necessary. To enjoy survival rewards as much as possible, we exercise to burn off the extra calories we eat but do not need. While we can burn off extra calories, our bodies are not built for the overuse, as evidenced by the growing numbers of hip replacements.
Survival rewards fade with repeated short-term exposure. The first taste of food triggers the strongest effect. The second taste triggers a weaker effect than the first and so on. This short-term fading discourages eating too much.
Modern Eating
Increased flavor variety has contributed to overeating.
In the past, we only ate a few flavors. After a few mouthfuls, meals were not pleasing. We kept eating to avoid hunger, not to enjoy pleasing taste.
Today’s greatly expanded variety of flavors makes meals enjoyable from start to finish. As soon as one flavor stops triggering pleasing taste, we switch to a new flavor. After the appetizer and main course, everyone always has room for dessert.
We exercise more than necessary so we can eat more than necessary. To enjoy survival rewards as much as possible, we exercise to burn off the extra calories we eat but do not need. While we can burn off extra calories, our bodies are not built for the overuse, as evidenced by the growing numbers of hip replacements.
Happiness Dissected is a more practical version of The Origin of Emotions.