FoodKnower
Like many people, I've always wanted to keep my weight under control. I've tried all kinds of diets, like low fat, low carb, no sugar and starch, intermittent fasting... they would all work for the first few months, but then stop having any effect. How could this be? Is it a lost cause, and weight loss drugs like Ozempic the only way forward?
Something kept nagging at me. What if there was something common to all these diet plans? Then it hit me like a lightning bolt one afternoon, when I was surfing the internet:
Plain white rice. People in Asia eat rice every day without getting fat. There was an argument on the low carb forums — how can they eat so much rice without becoming overweight? There was no good answer.
So I consulted the latest nutrition science. It turns out that white rice is fine! Potatoes are okay. Some kinds of bread are good. Plain pasta, too. What Fazzino's hyperpalatability research shows is that we overeat because our food has been engineered to make us overeat. Manufacturers put in additives to make it taste good. They create combinations of flavors and textures that make you reach for the next potato chip. They bypass the signals of fullness that stop us from overeating.
And yet, we can't just rely on the presence of additives and chemicals. Consider a home baked cookie, or a simple potato chip with just potatoes, oil, and salt. These all have natural ingredients, yet the research shows they cause just as much weight gain. Health? Weight control? They're related, but different. We need two scores: one for how easy it is to overeat, and one for how artificial the food is.
Many healthy foods still cause overeating. And it's not always intuitive which ones.
Browsing through many food and nutrition apps, I found there were none that focused on these two things. So that's why I created FoodKnower: to share the research with everyone, in a way that's simple and convenient to use.
A way to eat healthy without giving up tasty foods.
A way to lose weight without fighting your body and starving yourself.
I reached my target weight in nine months, without once feeling hungry. I wish I found this out many years ago.
— Brian Lui, Founder of FoodKnower
