Whenever I travel to somewhere new, I always love exploring their authentic cuisine first. Of course, when I told my friends and family that I was going to Paris for study abroad, everyone told me about all the delicious food the French have to offer. Baguettes, éclairs, escargot, et cetera…you name them. Thus, two weeks ago when I arrived in Paris for the first time, I began my hunt for the perfect dessert!
The hunger (and thirst) has been real. Every corner lies a cute patisserie filled with glass cases of tempting desserts. Where do I even begin?! During the first week of the program, our class went on an excursion to Pere-Lachaise cemetery, a beautiful (though slightly haunting) place where many famous people like Oscar Wilde and Chopin are buried. Our instructors led a group scavenger hunt and the prize was a box of French macarons! This was the perfect opportunity for me to try my first macaron in Paris! Being the competitive person that I am, I hurriedly found most of the tombstones on the list with my team while the clock was ticking.
Here is a picture of the winning team snacking on a yummy macaron!
Little did I know the stress induced by this race had led me craving for sweets. This made me wonder – why do I always crave chocolate and sweets whenever I’m stressed? So then I decided to do some research and found some neuroscience to explain this occurrence.
In a study done by Macedo and Diez-Garcia in 2014, they found that excessively ingesting sweet substances may decrease the effects of stress in women and impact leptin levels. You might ask – what is leptin and why does it matter? Well, leptin is a hormone that regulates your appetite and controls energy by restoring it to normal levels in the body called homeostasis. At these normal levels, leptin promotes a feeling of reward by acting on the mesolimbic dopaminergic system. The mesolimbic dopaminergic system is a reward system in our brain and is activated when we do things that are pleasurable, such as eating or even abusing drugs.
Here is a diagram of the mesolimbic dopamine “reward” system.
Anyway, leptin levels rise after you eat and stimulate anorexigen neurons, which suppress the appetite. Basically leptin helps you feel full so that you don’t overeat. It has been found that leptin decreases the feeling of reward in the overweight.
The researchers wanted to study how sweet cravings (SC) in women are related to stress and how SC affect leptin levels in the body. They performed this study in 57 women and divided the participants in two groups – “stress-free” and the “stressed.” These women took a survey that asked them if they had a strong desire to eat sweet food over the last three months in order to identify them as a SC participant. The women then had their blood drawn to measure hormone levels and the researchers measured their body composition.
After controlling for a multitude of factors, they found that among the stressed women, 77.42% had SC. They also found that SC women had significantly higher leptin levels. One way to explain this might be because leptin acts on the hypothalamus (area in the brain in charge of hormones) and suppresses the response to sweet food, changing people’s sensitivity to sweet foods (Niki et al., 2010). Therefore Macedo and Diez-Garcia concluded that stressed women are more prone to SC and this condition is associated with increased levels of leptin.
This study has helped me understand why I keep craving for sweets in Paris. After all, coming to a whole new country has been an overwhelming experience, especially since I have to balance schoolwork and explore the beautiful city at the same time. Five weeks is a lot shorter than I anticipated and I want to travel all over Paris but alas, this is a study abroad program so there is work to do! Now I understand how stress has affected my appetite.
Even at the local Monoprix (the French version of Target), I found myself strolling down the aisles of chocolate and buying a couple bars to snack on later. Back home, I never really buy chocolate because it has never been a habit of mine. A scientific review done by Sinha and Jastreboff (2013) claim that acute stress can increase food intake, especially when highly palatable, calorie-dense foods are available. This helps explain why I keep craving for high-calorie sweet things here! Another study researched on the psychoactive effects of chocolate and desire for more chocolate. They found that the sugar and cocoa contents of chocolate are primarily related to the desire to consume more of it (Nasser et al., 2011). This may explain why I usually eat more chocolate if it’s dark than when it’s just white chocolate. Who knew you could tie in food and neuroscience in Paris?!
Before I go, I wanted to finish this blog post with a few pictures of the delicious desserts I have found and also a map of where I’ve traveled.
Delicious desserts in glass cases all over Paris – they are always so colorful and pretty!
Éclair heaven in a patisserie near the Accent center where I go for classes every day. My personal favorite is the Speculoos éclair – om nom nom!
Lastly, a map of all the places I’ve visited for desserts in Paris. Hopefully by the end of this trip, I’ll have red pins all over!
My journey for yummy desserts does not end here! I shall keep you updated on what and where I eat. Bon appetit, readers 🙂
-Kimi Chan
References:
Macedo D, Diez-Garcia R (2014). Sweet craving and ghrelin and leptin levels in women during stress. Appetite. 80:264-270.
Nasser J, Bradley L, Leitzsch J, Chohan O, Fasulo K, Haller J, Jeger K, Szulanczyk B, Del Parigi A (2011). Psychoactive effects of tasting chocolate and desire for more chocolate. Physiology and Behavior. 104(1): 117-121.
Niki M, Jyotaki M, Yoshida R, Ninomiya Y (2010). Reciprocal modulation of sweet taste by leptin and endocannabinoids. Results and Problems in Cell Differentiation. 52: 101-114.
Sinha R, Jastreboff A (2013). Stress as a common risk factor for obesity and addiction. Biological Psychiatry. 73(9): 827-835.
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