Food Reward Friday

This week's lucky "winner"... cola!

Thirsty yet?  Visual cues such as these are used to drive food/beverage seeking and consumption behavior, which are used to drive profits.  How does this work?  Once you've consumed a rewarding beverage enough times, particularly as a malleable child, your brain comes to associate everything about that beverage with the primary reward you obtained from it (calories, sugar, and caffeine).  This is simply Pavlovian/classical conditioning*.  Everything associated with that beverage becomes a cue that triggers motivation to obtain it (craving), including the sight of it, the smell of it, the sound of a can popping, and even the physical and social environment it was consumed in-- just like Pavlov's dogs learned to drool at the sound of a bell that was repeatedly paired with food.

This is a big part of why food advertising works.  Showing you food on TV or on a billboard is simply a cue that triggers your previously formed reward association, motivating you to obtain the food/beverage when it may not have crossed your mind otherwise.

Cola is an interesting beverage with a long history in the US.  It became popular after the development of Coca-Cola by the American pharmacist John Pemberton in 1886.  If you asked 20 people on the street what is used to flavor and color cola, I suspect most of them would have no idea, or guess some sort of industrial chemical concoction.  In fact, the flavor comes from a blend of common spices we're all familiar with, including citrus rind, cinnamon, and vanilla, and the color comes from caramel.

Of course, it also comes with a hefty dose of sugar, or more precisely, high-fructose corn syrup.  One 12 oz can clocks in at 136 calories, about 50% more than a medium apple.  A 20 oz beverage, also commonly consumed, weighs in at 226 calories.  Soda is nutritionally bankrupt, tends to be consumed carelessly on top of a normal diet, doesn't contain the substances (fiber, protein) that would normally limit intake and provide health benefits, promotes tooth decay, and is rewarding enough that we drink it in the absence of calorie need (hunger).  Sugar-sweetened beverages (as opposed to most other sources of sugar) are linked to the development of obesity in observational studies and controlled trials, although the evidence hasn't always been consistent.

Why do we drink soda?  Because it's rewarding, almost by definition (reward = motivation and behavioral reinforcement).  If it weren't rewarding, we'd just drink water instead.  Why is it rewarding?  No mystery here.  As with all hyper-palatable/rewarding foods, it's somewhat of a perfect storm.  It contains a concentration of sugar that's right at the human "bliss point" that is consistently exploited by food manufacturers-- not too low and not too high.  It contains caffeine, a habit-forming drug (and it used to contain cocaine).  It tastes good and has a pleasant fizz.  Last but not least, it's easy to ingest.


* The calories, sugar, and caffeine are the unconditioned stimuli; the appearance, aroma, atmosphere, etc. are the conditioned stimuli.  Once conditioned by repeated pairing with the unconditioned stimuli, the conditioned stimuli become cues that drive motivation for the beverage.