• Question: why does it taste nice if we eat pizza with coke?

    Asked by bjw1472 to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 14 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Sarah Martin

      Sarah Martin answered on 14 Jun 2012:

      Well, it’s healthy to eat, and it’s healthy to drink – so your brain must be telling you you’re hungry and thirsty! Enjoy!

    • Photo: Karen Reed

      Karen Reed answered on 15 Jun 2012:

      Hiya bjw1472 – on our tongues we have different sensors for sweet things and sour things and salty things etc. I think its been shown that certain combinations of food – like cheese and wine – or in your case pizza and coke – go really well together because they have a way of hitting all the pleasure sensors to just the right level and therefore seem really good together.

    • Photo: Amy Birch

      Amy Birch answered on 15 Jun 2012:

      Hi bjw1472,
      I think it tastes nice when I eat pizza with anything!
      When we eat and drink things that contain sugar and carbohydrates (both in pizza and coke), the part of our brain that controls reward becomes active. This releases a neurochemical called dopamine that makes us feel satisfied and happy.
      This is because we need to eat both sugar and carbohydrates to survive and so our brains have evolved to make us feel happy when we eat them, so that we want to eat them again in the future!
      Other parts of our brain will also become active even before eating the food, like the hippocampus and amygdala. These regions control our memories and emotions and so we will start to remember the delicious taste of pizza/coke last time we ate it. This means that we will automatically be anticipating how nice it is going to be and therefore we feel even more happy and satisfied when our expectation of how yummy it is comes true! 🙂

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