Sensory Activation in the Eating Experience

摘要

Food choices are primarily neurological responses activating pleasure centers of the brain. As product developers seek to create "cravable" new products, including those with improved nutritional profiles, such as low-fat and -sodium, one must truly understand the eating experience. What behavioral factors drive impulse buying? What makes a food cravable? Why do people choose to eat certain foods over others, even when they know the food might be unhealthy? What are the product attributes that make Oreos and Doritos cash-generating machines, year after year? The harsh but simple truth is that the biochemical mechanisms which drive food choices are not widely understood by the companies that manufacture, market and sell food. Flavor is only a small part of what could be called the "Cravability Product Design Theory;" overall, these techniques are not intuitive. This speaks directly as to why there are a relatively small number of food products, amongst a universe of thousands, which are truly cravable; in marketing vernacular-cash cows.