How does our brain and jaw work with VCD?

Well, I'll be honest and say that the information on how these two are connected would require a decent bit of science nerdom, but I'll try to keep it as short and targeted as possible with what I've discovered.

Please allow me to throw some scientific stuff at you so that you can understand how connected the action of mastication is to how satiety works. Signals are sent early on in the chewing process through your teeth, tongue and something called the temporomandibular joint. The receptors in your brain determine how long you've been eating and how much food you've chewed. So, the more you chew, the stronger the signals get to your brain the faster you feel satiety. 

The more you chew and actually taste your food, the more signals go forth saying to your brain that food is frequently coming. Hormones in your GI tract are released, and those hormones tell your hypothalamus just how full you really are. You can look into some of these hormones such as leptin, insulin, cholecystokinin, peptide, and GLP-1. 

We have stretch receptors in our stomach that as the stomach fills up, receptors tell your body that you are feeling the sensation of "fullness" and starts to hit the brakes on your desire to eat more. When we have enough brain signals, the hypothalamus reduces the appetite, slows the chewing action and eventually ceases your eating behavior. 

Now let's walk through what VCD does to these important processes, okay? 

The nasty trick with VCD is that it requires less chewing which leads to less chewed food that requires less trigeminal nerve stimulation. It weakens the satiety signals that would normally arise during this feedback.

When food "melts" in your mouth, the sensory nerves in your mouth have much less time to send signals which tells your brain that the food you ate was actually much lighter than it really was which causes an underestimating of the caloric load.

Further, since VCD foods are low in both fiber and nutrients, you don't get any of the strong "I'm Full Now" signals that would normally trigger in your gut. Because you aren't getting the hormonal release, your body may not even realize that you even had a meal. 

VCD foods tend to hijack the reward system and hyperactivate the dopamine receptors. This can lead to what would be very similar to drug addiction but rather than drugs it's food that's terrible for you. It's like you've been given an award for something that you didn't even earn. 

On my next blog post, we are going to see what happens when we combine VCD with the blue light from cell phones, tablets, computers, tv's, and basically anything with a screen.