One Bad Experience May Lead To Avoiding A Food Forever
Ever had a bad experience with a food and you can never eat it again? Even if it was something you loved before, this one experience makes you never want to have it again. It turns out there might actually be a scientific explanation for why we do this.
The University of Sussex researched snails to understand this behavior. They would tap it’s shell every time it’s favorite food, sugar, was present. They found that over time the neuron that associated sugar and pleasure reversed. The usual response to the sugar which was pleasure over time changed to being associated with the tapping.
According to EurekAlert.com, senior researcher George Kemenes states, ” In our research, the negative experience the snail had with the sugar could be likened to eating a bad takeaway curry which then puts us off that particular dish in the future.”
