I have a theory

If, at every instance you put something in your mouth, what you eat covers every flavor in your tongue's spectrum of tastes, the desire for quantity no longer exists.

This theory is beginning to drive the way I eat (and cook) these days. Not all meals, but most of them - and it's making me really think about what I'm putting in my mouth. It's a simple idea.

I forget exactly what it was that I served, but the other day Hubby was, again, my guinea pig for trying out a little food marble I've been tossing around in this cranial cavity of mine. The dinner I served covered the tongue's spectrum of tastes, and it covered the major food types. It left a hungry Hubby full after one serving, not even wanting of dessert. (I had incorporated some sweet flavors in the entree course) And this experiment led me to wonder, whether it is not so much the size of our stomach that drives the desire for food, but more this muscle in our mouth that acts as a direct extension of the human creature's, or any animal's for that matter, innate ability to self regulate.

Could it be that our tongue, this direct - and usually first - connection between our human organism and the foods that fuel it, has a natural map of flavors that would cover all the nutrients our body needs? It is, after all, the only sense that comes into direct physical contact, in most cases, to the actual foods we ingest. If the tongue has this natural map - maybe, then, the tongue is not as much a reactionary organ that sends the message of what it encounters to different synapses in our brain. It may, instead, be the provocateur, fulfilling the body's quota for various nutrients by requesting foods available through nature and mapped into our genes over human history, foods which harbor nutrients necessary for our organism's survival.

(here's another plug to eat foods that haven't been processed - the more processed foods we eat, the more it may modify our - and our offsprings' - genetics to want processed foods)

I'm preparing for a dinner this Saturday - and I'm serving this marble to the masses. For the dinner, I'm coupling the idea of taste spectrum with the layer of texture spectrum. The verdict is still out.