From faster digestion of sweets to social conditioning, there are several explanations for the phenomenon.
He walks away from the table after Christmas lunch, satisfied with an excellent feast. I really couldn’t eat anything else – except, perhaps, some pudding. Somehow, no matter how much I’ve eaten, there always seems to be room for dessert. Why? What is it about something sweet that tempts us to say “oh well, let’s go”?
The Japanese capture it perfectly with the word betsubara, which means “separate stomach“. Anatomically speaking, there is no extra compartment, but the feeling of still having room for the pudding is so common that it deserves a scientific explanation.
Far from being imaginary, this feeling reflects a series of physiological and psychological processes that, together, make the exceptionally attractive desserteven when the main course seems to have reached its limit.
A good starting point is the stomach itself. Many people imagine it as a bag of a fixed size that is constantly filled until it can no longer be filled, as if one more bite would make it overflow.
In reality, the stomach is designed to expand and adapt. When we start eating, the stomach goes through a process of “gastric accommodation”: the smooth muscles relax, creating extra capacity without a large increase in pressure.
Crucially, soft and sweet foods require very little mechanical digestion. A heavy main course can leave your stomach feeling distended, but a light dessert like ice cream or mousse will help. hardly requires effort from the stomachallowing you to relax even more to create space.
Hedonic hunger
Much of the drive to eat dessert comes from the brain, specifically the neural pathways involved in reward and pleasure. Appetite is not just governed by physical hunger. There is also “hedonic hunger”, the desire to eat because something is pleasurable or comforting.
Sweet foods are particularly powerful in this regard. They activate the brain’s mesolimbic dopaminergic system, increasing motivation to eat and temporarily weakening satiety signals.
After a satisfying main course, physiological hunger may be gone, but the anticipation of a sugary treat creates a separate desiredriven by the reward, to continue eating.
Another mechanism is the specific sensory satiety. As we eat, our brain’s response to the flavors and textures on the plate gradually diminishes, making the food less interesting. Introducing a different flavor profile – something sweet, tart or creamy – renews the reward response.
Many people who really feel like they can’t finish their main course suddenly discover that they “could have some dessert,” because the novelty of dessert Reactivates your motivation to eat.
Desserts also behave differently when they reach the intestine. Compared to foods rich in protein or fat, sugary and carbohydrate-based foods are emptied from the stomach quickly and require relatively little initial digestioncontributing to the perception that they are easier to digest even when you are full.
Time also plays an important role. The signaling between the gut and the brain that creates the feeling of satiety does not respond instantly.
Hormones such as cholecystokinin, GLP-1 and peptide YY increase gradually and typically take 20 to 40 minutes to produce a sustained feeling of satiety. Many people decide on dessert before this hormonal change has fully manifested itself, giving the reward system room to influence behavior.
Restaurants, consciously or unconsciously, usually plan their dessert offerings for this period.
In addition to these biological processes, there is the influence of social conditioning. For many people, dessert is associated with the celebrationgenerosity or comfort. From childhood, we learn to consider desserts as treats or as natural components of festive meals.
Cultural and emotional cues can trigger anticipatory pleasure before the food even arrives. Studies consistently show that people eat more in social settingswhen food is offered freely or on special occasions – all situations in which dessert is normally present.
So the next time someone insists that they’re too full for another bite for dinner but somehow finds room for a slice of cake, rest assured: they’re not being inconsistent. She is simply experiencing a perfectly normal and even elegant feature of the human body.
