Eating Something Sweet Could Stop You from Snacking on Garbage Later

You’re going to eat a lot of forgettable meals in your life. It may have seemed like a stroke of genius when you added peanuts to your ramen that one time, but it’s just going to blend in withall those other uninspired, sad meals. But, in a win for dessert lovers, a new study suggests that if a meal includes something sweet, you’re more likely to remember it. And that could do the body good.

A study conducted by Georgia State University, Georgia Regents University, and Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center found that rats that ate a sweetened solution experienced significantly increased activity in the part of the brain that forms episodic memory, the type of memory that allows us to form autobiographical thoughts and construct our experiences into serial form. While that may help you recall your birthdays and birthday cakes, it might serve you an even better purpose: Researchers think that it could help you control your appetite.

Science Daily cites an English study that found that remembering meals is important for regulating diet. When that memory-making doesn’t happen or is interrupted—say you eat a meal while you’re watching TV—people tend to eat more the next time they eat. The Georgia team also had previously conducted a study on rats that found that when the region of the brain that forms episodic memory was deactivated following a sweet meal, rats would eat sooner and eat more.

“We think that episodic memory can be used to control eating behavior,” said Marise Parent, professor in the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State. “We make decisions like ‘I probably won’t eat now. I had a big breakfast.’ We make decisions based on our memory of what and when we ate.”

Having a memory of meals on the short-term helps lead to a balanced diet. Snacking, which is associated with obesity, is the enemy in this scenario. Science Daily points out that people with amnesia will eat shortly after having eaten a meal as they have no memory of the first meal.

“It’s not just that we remember sweet meals because we think they taste good,” said Colorado 9NEWS psychologist Dr. Max Wachtel. “They actually cause chemical changes in the brain that help us to remember them.”

The study was published online in the journal Hippocamus, and the overarching mission is to better understand why and when the brain decides when you should eat. While no one is suggesting you go for some stupid massive sundae with every meal—it’s too early to make any conclusions of any kind—if they find that by adding a reasonable dessert we can avoid chomping down on worthless unsatisfying snacks later, that would be a fantastic discovery. Science is on our side.