Have you ever heard someone say they don’t like the taste of water? This can make sense if it’s tap-water or Arrowhead, but when it’s plain filtered water, this is an odd thing to say. How can water taste bad? To a degree, it’s suppose to taste like nothing. Similarly, some people will say fruits taste bland instead of sweet.
Although both opinions can sound like simple preference, they can actually signal an unhealthy diet.
Fruit and water may taste bland to you because you’re overwhelming your taste buds with hyperpalatable foods (foods that tastes really good). Classic examples of these foods include ice cream, soda, chips, and other processed foods. Because most of these foods are calorically dense and processed, bland water and fruit can signal a very unhealthy diet.
What Are Hyperpalatable Foods?
Hyperpalatable foods are simply foods that taste very good. This is obviously subjective, but they do share a few common characteristics.
Addictive
Here are a few scenarios that highlight the addictiveness of hyperpalatable foods
- You planned on only having a few, but end up eating much more
- Even when you’re full from eating, you can somehow find room for that food
- You get strong cravings for that food if you haven’t had it in a while. Or you may get cravings 5 minutes after you stop eating it
Highly Processed
Almost all highly processed foods are hyperpalatable. We say “highly-processed” and not just processed because there’s a big difference between the two terms. Just being processed can mean anything; cooking raw meat is technically a form of processing a food. However, highly-processed refers to the unnatural engineering that went into the food and makes it as tasty and addictive as possible.
Look at commercial potato chips as an example. Obviously, they aren’t found naturally in the wild, so they’re at least processed. However, they’re not simply cooked potatoes. Those chips have had millions of dollars invested into their research. Every detail such as the crunchiness, the size of each chip, and the amount of salt left on your fingertips have been studied to perfection. That’s what we mean by “engineered food,” and that’s what makes potato chips so hyperpalatable.
Calorie Dense
The final characteristic is having more calories than actual nutrients. Contrast this with nutrient dense foods, which have more micronutrients than calories. Below are a list of common calorie dense foods as well as nutrient dense foods.
| Calorie Dense | Nutrient Dense |
| Potato Chips | Kale |
| Ice Cream | Spinach |
| Soda | Pepper |
| Sweet Potatoes | Sweet Potatoes |
| Olive Oil |
Notice that some “healthy” foods are still considered calorically dense, like olive oil. Also, some foods are both calorie and nutrient dense, like sweet potatoes. Being calorie dense does not automatically make it unhealthy. To learn more about the difference between calorie and nutrient dense foods, see out article here.
However, hyperpalatable foods are almost always calorically dense.
How Does Bland Fruit/Water Mean a Poor Diet?
There are two main ways this can signal a bad diet:
- Too many calories
- Too little micronutrients
Too Many Calories
As mentioned earlier, almost every hyperpalatable food is calorie dense. Calories influence your weight more than any other aspect of food. Because of this, having too many calorie-dense foods in your diet makes it much harder to control weight.
In fact, a study compared the effects of eating hyperpalatable (or “ultra-processed”) foods versus whole natural foods. The two groups were allowed to eat until they were satisficed for a two week period. In the end, they found the hyperpalatable group ate about 500 calories more each day than the whole natural group.
500 calories a day is a massive difference. Since there’s about 3,500 calories in one pound of fat, eating 500 more than your body needs each day will lead to one pound of fat gain every week. If this goes unchecked for months or years, this can lead to significant weight gain.
Too Little Micronutrients
The major difference between calorically and nutrient dense foods is the nutrient content. Because most calorie dense foods have little to no micronutrients, you’re more likely to run into some kind of deficiency.
Here’s a few examples of important micronutrients and what can happen if you’re deficient. All this information comes from the CDC’s micronutrient fact sheet:
| Micronutrient | If You’re Deficient: |
| Iron | Anemia Problems/Diseases at Birth (if mother is iron deficient) |
| Vitamin A | Increased risk of blindness and infection (children) |
| Vitamin D | Bone disease Muscle and nerve dysfunction |
| Folate (Vitamin B9) | Blood disorders |
Although this doesn’t have a direct effect on fat loss/gain, this does have significant impacts on quality of life.
How To Make Fruit and Water Taste Better
Now that you know why bland fruit and water can be such an important signal, let’s talk about how to fix it. If you were to take this literally, the easiest way would be to prepare your fruits in a way that tastes better, or add zero calorie flavoring to water. This would technically make them taste better, but obviously it won’t solve the root problem; too many hyperpalatable foods.
The best way to fix your diet is to replace hyperpalatable foods with nutrient-dense alternatives. This process is called an elimination diet.
Elimination Diet
- Identify a hyperpalatable food you have often: Use the characteristics listed above (addictive, highly-processed, calorie-dense) to find out what’s hyperpalatable in your diet. It’s best to start with something you have on a daily basis.
- Replace that food with a nutrient-dense alternative: If you’re not familiar with nutrient dense foods, use this article to help understand them and pick the right one for you. Alternatively, you could just remove the hyperpalatable food entirely without replacing it with something else. While this is a more simple solution, it’s not likely to work long-term since quitting cold-turkey is not normally a long-term solution. In fact, we’ll later discuss when you can reintroduce these foods into your diet
- Maintain for 2-3 weeks before repeating on the next food: Giving up these foods can be like giving up other addictive substances. Some of the possible withdrawal symptoms include:
- Fatigue
- Brain fog
- Strong cravings
- Hunger spikes
This is why you should wait 2-3 weeks before eliminating another food. If you remove too many foods at the same time, these symptoms can get overwhelming.
After Eliminating Hyperpalatable Foods
Once your every day diet becomes all nutrient-dense and whole foods, and you maintain this diet for a few weeks or months, you’ll notice how different fruit and water will taste. In fact, you may find yourself craving these whole foods not because they taste good, but because you know they make you feel good.
So does this mean you should never eat hyperpalatable foods again? Not at all. Below we’ll outline why you shouldn’t remove those foods entirely, and what times are the most appropriate to enjoy them.
When To Enjoy Hyperpalatable Foods
We’ve spent most of this article detailing the dangers of hyperpalatable foods; from it’s addictive properties to it’s effects on weight-gain. However, food is more than just a source of nutrition. Food expresses culture, it brings people together, and its overall part of what makes life worth living.
In fact, being overly healthy can be an eating disorder in itself. Orthorexia, according to WebMD, is “an unhealthy focus of eating in a healthy way.” An “unhealthy focus,” can be described by the following behaviors:
- Focusing way too much on food quality (only eating grass-fed, non-gmo, etc.)
- Declining social invitations because the food may not be up to your standards
- Refusing to eat, or getting anxious about, eating food that wasn’t measured or weighed out
- Eating a narrow range of foods because eating anything new will cause anxiety
To be fair, some professional athletes go through these behaviors when preparing for a big event. This is especially true for bodybuilders since any deviation from their diet will effect their performance. However, if you’re not a professional, and you exhibit these behaviors, you’re only undermining your overall health.
We mentioned earlier that food is more than nutrition, and the same can be said with health. Health is not just about eating good foods. It’s about having healthy relationships, keeping stress to a minimal, and overall enjoying your life rather than worrying about the details.
Appropriate Times For Hyperpalatable Foods
- Social gatherings (holidays, parties, get-togethers, etc.)
- When you’re short on time and need something quick and easy (just don’t make this a habit)
- Experiencing foods from different cultures
- When your goal is to eat more calories than you’re use to (just don’t go overboard)