There’s nothing harder than having to resist temptation when you’re hungry and the smell of delicious food wafts your way. Be it pizza, fried chicken, noodles or garlicky bread, we all know that the struggle of walking away from junk food is real.
However, it turns out the key to resisting those cheesy, fried comfort foods is taking the time to really smell them.
Researchers at the University of Florida have discovered that letting your senses be filled by the smells of food for two minutes can satisfy your cravings.
The findings were published in the Journal of Marketing Research and the report explains that initially smelling a food for a few seconds prepares your brain to taste it, which can create a craving for the food.
However, if you smell the same food for two minutes or more the ‘reward centre’ in your brain (the part of your brain that feels all satisfied after eating delicious food) confuses the smell for the real deal and you no longer crave the food. Rather, you feel satisfied as if you had eaten it.
Basically, if you inhale that smell on a brief walk past the restaurant you’ll crave the food. But if you’re stuck smelling it for more than two minutes you’ll find your initial craving will pass.
The findings discovered by the researchers aren’t entirely new. Popular fast-food restaurant chains across the globe have been known to pump the aromas of their food out of their restaurant and into shopping malls to entice customers for a while now. It seems the key is imply taking the time to stop and smell the roses, so to speak!
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