Sweet Foods May Help People Remember Their Meals, Control Eating

A U.S. study has determined that eating sweet foods activates an area of the brain that helps remember specific events, like eating a meal. If that area remains dormant, people are less likely to remember that they’ve eaten, and will tend to eat more. The researchers said that people will make a lunch decision, for example, based on whether they remember that they ate breakfast. "We think that episodic memory can be used to control eating behavior," said one researcher, but more study is necessary to find out if nutritionally balanced diets with protein, fat and carbohydrates have a similar effect on the brain’s ability to remember meals.