If you like my epistemic fact check posts you’ll probably enjoy Scott’s extremely thorough review of The Hungry Brain.

One claim is that hyperpalatable foods (through a long scientific process) lead to weight gain, and bland foods lead to weight loss or maintenance.  I think we should not assume bland is the opposite of hyperpalatable.  Hyperpalable refers to food with a very high ratio of [calories/sugar/fat/unami] to [fiber/anything else that makes us feel full].  There are foods that have a reasonable ratio of those things and yet are not bland, because they have so many spices.

Conventional wisdom is that variety spurs us to eat more, but my personal experience is that I will feel full faster with a novel food, or even a familiar food with a novel twist.  I will go through a bunch of staples never feeling full, then eat three cashews with weird spices on them and be totally fine.

Meanwhile soylent, which is the blandest thing in existence, only registers as food on a certain level.  This is good when I really don’t feel like eating but need nutrients, but bad when I’m traveling and would really like to feel full and the other option is pretzel bits.