Abstract
The desire to consume high volumes of fat is thought to originate from an evolutionary pressure to hoard calories, and fat is among the few energy sources that we can store over a longer time period. From an ecological perspective, however, it would be beneficial to detect fat from a distance, before ingesting it. Previous results indicate that humans detect high concentrations of fatty acids by their odor. More important though, would be the ability to detect fat content in real food products. In a series of three sequential experiments, using study populations from different cultures, we demonstrated that individuals are able to reliably detect fat content of food via odors alone. Over all three experiments, results clearly demonstrated that humans were able to detect minute differences between milk samples with varying grades of fat, even when embedded within a milk odor. Moreover, we found no relation between this performance and either BMI or dairy consumption, thereby suggesting that this is not a learned ability or dependent on nutritional traits. We argue that our findings that humans can detect the fat content of food via odors may open up new and innovative future paths towards a general reduction in our fat intake, and future studies should focus on determining the components in milk responsible for this effect.
Highlights
In many Western diets, up to 40% of daily caloric intake is in the form of lipids, despite the fact that the recommended level for most individuals is at least 10% lower [1]
We aimed to establish the ability of olfactory fat detection in humans using an ecologically relevant setting
In a series of three behavioral experiments, using study populations from different cultures, we demonstrated for the first time that humans can discriminate between varying concentrations of fat in a food product, using only their sense of smell
Summary
In many Western diets, up to 40% of daily caloric intake is in the form of lipids, despite the fact that the recommended level for most individuals is at least 10% lower [1]. It would be clearly advantageous to detect the fat content of food from a distance in order to maximize the chances of finding a source of calories, and before a potentially toxic substance enters the mouth for nutrient evaluation. Support for this basic assumption already comes from animal literature in which the role of olfaction in the preference for fat foods and triglycerides has been clearly established [8,9,10,11]. Based on the data above, we hypothesize that, analogous to non-human animals, humans can detect fat content of food by our sense of smell alone
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