Making a Meal out of a Speech

In essence, digestion works by breaking down large food particles into their constituent parts and building them up into something more useful such as muscle or skin cells. A good modern example of this is AI models such as ChatGPT, which gets fed tons of data, where the machine breaks the data down into its constituent parts, only to build it up into a model that can produce something more useful.

Now that I have given you something to chew on, ladies and gentlemen, I plan to make a meal out of this speech. In this three-course meal, we will dig into our relationship with food: how physical feelings in our bellies can change thoughts in our brains

For starters, we start with taste. Four key features of food contribute to taste: Sugar, salt, fat and acid. As these ingredients have been scarce for most of our human existence, we have come to crave these substances. Sugar and fat also provide much-needed energy to sustain our bodies.

Fat itself does not taste much, but flavour molecules dissolve inside the fat, making the taste linger longer in your mouth. This helps to explain why fast food can be so addictive.

Scientists have also engineered food to prevent what they call sensory-specific satiety. This is just a fancy way of saying your tastebuds become gatvol (fed up) when they get exposed to the same thing over and over again. You might have noticed that Doritos has perfected this art.

Now that I’ve marinaded you in the knowledge of how we experience taste, let’s now move over to the main course and see how the effect of food on our bodies can change our minds.?

Have you ever sat down to an Easter or Christmas meal where, for example, you ate so much chicken that you felt you have satisfied all your nutritional and gustatory needs forever more? So you told yourself: “I’ll never eat again”? But of course, you did eat again. Probably that night—and probably chicken. The less distended your stomach became, the more your feel like you can eat again. The way your body feels changes the way you think about your future preferences and desires. This shows that our bodies, more particularly our stomachs, influence how we think.

Now, I know the main course was a mouthful. So, while you wait for this lifeless mass to slowly wind its way down your digestive tract at the speed of continental drift and you wait for dessert, let me tell you about a time when I failed at cooking. Miserably.

I once tried to bake

The most delectable chocolate cake

Baking can be lots of fun

If you know how it’s done

When the oven started to shake?

it was time for me and my attempt to forsake

For dessert, I am sorry to disappoint, but it is just the icing on the cake.

Mr Toastmaster...