PSYC 2230 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Laxative, Osmosis, Twin Study
1 Nov 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Homeostasis is the primary mechanism controlling ingestion of food or water. What do we eat: taste and smell as gatekeepers receptors on your tongue and in nose provide initial info about food. Sweet, sour, bitter and umami (savoury) tastes give us information about whether to ingest food that is in our mouth taste acts as a guardian for our internal state. Sweet-tasting foods are calorically dense and, in our ancestral past, would have been highly valuable. Bitter-tasting foods are more likely to contain toxins that could make us sick or even kill us = better avoided. Sour-tasting foods might be on the verge of going bad = might be best to avoid them too -- though some sour tasting substances when combined with sweetness are liked. Salt is essential for life = preferred. Why do we eat? to provide energy to our bodies. Question of what initiates eating is difficult. Cues in our environment that signal the availability of food.
