Hanger And The Munchies: 5 Common Food Feelings Explained

In a 2014 study published in Nature Neuroscience, a team of neuroscientists pumped mice full of THC, the ingredient that gives marijuana its trademark kick. When they later put the mice under the microscope (miceroscope?), they found something fascinating: The THC had seeped into their brains and attached itself to the olfactory bulb (the part of the brain that governs sense of smell).

This wasn't just biological couchsurfing, though. The THC also supercharged the bulb, giving the mice an unbelievable boost in how far (and how richly) they could smell. And since look and smell are the two most important factors in judging whether to cram something down your neck, this resulted in the mice eating waaay more food than they normally would. Remember, humans are just very large mice, when you get down to it.

In an experiment, Gabriel and a team of researchers asked volunteers to describe themselves in terms of how well they could form strong emotional relationships. If they could, they were classified as having a "secure attachment style." If they couldn't, they were classified as having an "insecure attachment style." The volunteers were then asked to describe a fight or conflict that they'd had with someone close to them ... at the same time as eating and rating the flavor of potato chips.

When the researchers reviewed the results, they noticed something interesting. The volunteers who'd described themselves as having a secure attachment style had, at the same time as describing their bust-up, rated their potato chips as tastier than those who rated themselves as having an insecure attachment style did. (They were the same chips, obviously.) In other words, the process of reliving the fight drove the "secure" people to seek comfort in the potato chips, whereas the "insecure" people didn't feel as much need to scarf them down.

This, along with similar results from other experiments, led Gabriel and her team to conclude that those "who have positive family relationships are more likely to reach for reminders of those relationships in times of sadness -- and often, those reminders come in the form of something edible." Gabriel compares it to classical conditioning. Which makes sense, considering that comfort food often triggers copious amounts of drooling.

It's established scientific fact that ingesting caffeine triggers your gut to start spasming, which in turn signals your butt to move to battle stations. That's not to say that decaffeinated coffee doesn't kick-start a reaction in the chocolate factory, but -- and again, this is established scientific fact -- caffeinated coffee is 23 percent more effective at triggering the poop reflex than decaf, and 60 percent more effective than hot water.

It also helps that, by happenstance, our ritual of glugging down vast quantities of coffee takes place in the morning, a time during which our colon is twice as active as it normally is throughout the day. Your circadian rhythms load the proverbial gun, and your hot java fires it.

Don't tell your boss this interesting tidbit -- not because we don't want you to become known as the office poop fanatic (if anything, we definitely want that), but because we don't want to be held responsible if they replace the office coffee pot with bottled water.

Once you've finished using up the energy from your last meal, your insulin and blood sugar levels will start to drop. That's normal, given that your body isn't a perpetual energy machine. If you're keeping a good schedule and eating right, these drops should coincide closely with when your next meal is due, meaning that your levels don't wind up falling too far.

But if you observe less-than-stellar meal times, the drop in blood sugar will start to mess with your brain. That's because, unlike your other organs, which can be fueled by a wide range of nutrients and delicious chemicals, your brain is (much like your car) only capable of running on one fuel: glucose.

Missing a gas station will cause you to, among other things, become distracted, muddle your words, or -- you've guessed it -- act like an aggressive bitch. It's very much a "Jesus, take the wheel" moment by your brain, but the wheel is steering your emotions, and in any event, you're more likely to threaten to shank Jesus if he doesn't materialize a meatball sub right fucking now than ask him to calm you.

It's thought by neurobiologists that "hanger" is an old standby survival mechanism from the days when acquiring food wasn't a simple matter of looking up the nearest CVS, but a process that involved a ton of fighting, killing, and -- most importantly -- being a selfish dick with regards to your fellow man. In the days of yore, when times were tough and meals were lean, hanger enabled everyday folk to flip into beast mode and get their rightful share, as opposed to feebly standing in the background watching only the swolest members of the tribe chow down.

Which is a bit of a problem, considering that those blood vessels are next to a bunch of sensitive nerves located in your palate. The dramatic and sudden increase in blood flow trips these nerves, resulting in the painful sensation that we know as brain freeze -- or, if we're being honest with ourselves, what we more commonly refer to as "Ow, ow, ow, fuck, fuck, brain freeze, pass me that drink there, no that one right there, pass it to me, why are you being so slow you absolute bastard, pass it to me right noooooo- it's gone, doesn't matter."

Adam Wears is on Twitter and Facebook, and has a newsletter dedicated to depressing history facts. It's not as heartbreakingly sad as it sounds, promise!

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