The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat

by Stephan Guyenet

In 2010, Chris Voigt, the director of the Washington State Potato Commission, decided to eat nothing but potatoes and a small amount of cooking oil for sixty days. Voigt was protesting a decision by the federal Women, Infants, and Children food assistance program to remove potatoes from the list of vegetables it will pay for.51 Voigt contended, correctly, that potatoes are actually quite nutritious—in fact, one of the few foods that provide a broad enough complement of nutrients to sustain a human in good health for months at a time.52 He documented his journey on a Web site titled 20 Potatoes a Day, which refers to the number of potatoes he would have to eat to maintain his weight. Voigt signed himself up for two months of a starchy, bland, repetitive diet. Despite Voigt’s goal not to lose weight, the pounds melted off. He lost twenty-one pounds over the sixty-day period, much of it from his waistline. According to physical examinations before and after, his blood glucose, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels improved considerably. He had trouble eating enough to meet his energy needs because he simply wasn’t hungry. While we may be tempted to question the veracity of a person whose job involves promoting potatoes, Voigt’s experiment triggered an avalanche of Internet copycats who used the “potato diet” for rapid weight loss. Although anecdotal, their reports suggest that eating this bland, repetitive diet does indeed reduce spontaneous calorie intake without provoking ...

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