The Effect of Processing on Food Reward

Plain-language summary

The minimally processed diets of our ancestors have been rapidly replaced by UPFs driving poor diet to become the leading risk factor for preventable death globally. Hence, it is essential to understand what properties of UPF are driving their overconsumption to reduce diet-related mortality. To address this gap in knowledge this proposal will test: * If UPFs have a greater post meal metabolic response when compared to MPFs an essential signal for food reward * Through the use of an auction task paradigm if UPFs overvalued and if this value is differentially encoded in the brain This study is a fully cross-over design in that each participant receives all conditions and therefore serves as their own control. All orders of foods will be counterbalanced. Although participants cannot be blinded to the conditions as they must be aware of the foods they are eating, they will not be made aware that the key manipulation is food processing. On different days participants will come to the lab and consume a meal containing either minimally or ultra-processed foods as determined by the widely used NOVA (not an acronym) scale. These conditions will be consumed in a whole room metabolic chamber allowing for simultaneous measurement of multiple metabolic responses (glucose, insulin, and metabolic rate). These measures will be collected for 45 min before consumption of the meal (baseline) and for 3 hours after consumption (post-prandial). All participants will also undergo a Becker-Degroot-Marschak auction paradigm that consists of foods that are either minimally or Ultra-processed in the MRI scanner. Food value will be measure in participants' willingness to pay for each food and Neural responses will be measured during presentation of the food cues.

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