Another Experiment

After reading that article this morning, I'm going to try another experiment. For those of you who haven't had the time (or don't want to take the time) to read it, it's a run-down of diet programs that depend on manipulating flavors and aromas to control appetite. It discusses the Shangri-La Diet, the new Sensa program, the previous diet by the same guy who invented (and sells) Sensa, Scentsational Weight Loss, and another one called The Flavor Point Diet.

I gleaned an interesting tidbit from the article: The basic point of Scentsational Weight Loss is exactly opposite of that of The Shangri-La Diet. The SLD wants you to consume flavorless calories, with the idea that uncoupling the experience of receiving calories from that of tasting food will fool your brain into lowering your set point, and thus reduce hunger. Scentsational Weight Loss -- and I admit I have not read the book -- apparently wants you to smell food odors without eating, also to uncouple the idea of taste/aroma from that of consuming calories. (Hirsch also wants you to sniff your food before eating it, to start the body toward satiety.) Along with the book, Hirsch sold odorant capsules, apparently about the size of a lipstick, each with a different food odor in it. The dieter would sniff these between meals, the more often the better, to reduce appetite. It appears, however, that those odorant capsules are no longer on the market.

But how hard could it be, I thought, to make something like that? I rounded up four prescription bottles -- fortunately, I don't get around to throwing things out as often as I should. In each I put a cotton ball I'd scented with a different food extract: vanilla, chocolate, orange, and coconut, which just happened to be four extracts I had on hand. I will start sniffing these often throughout the day, and if by Groundhog Day I'm a size smaller, I'll let you know.