In recent days, the TikTok video of a group of four young people who had to pay almost 200 euros at an Asian free buffet in Lleida has gone viral. A part of the amount is the price of the four menus, and the rest are the penalties for the dishes they ordered and could not finish.

Luckily they were able to take away the surplus with bins (which they also paid for), and no food was thrown away. It is a strategy that many restaurants already use due to the desire of many customers who have no restraint when they can order dishes and dishes at a flat rate, at a fixed price.

As the protagonist of the video says, “something like this can happen to everyone”. Although in this case the amount of leftover food is almost obscene, it is true that many will have remembered a similar situation experienced. Who has not been nervous at some time and has ordered or served more than necessary at a buffet breakfast in a hotel?

The fact is that there is a biological explanation. A study published in the journal Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiolgy suggested that the mind can actually override the physical limits of the stomach so that there is much more room for food. It is one of our body’s reactions when we expose it to visual and olfactory stimuli related to food.

“Our brain, in a free buffet, undergoes many changes, which can be neurobiochemical, neurophysiological, and in which several factors intervene. It influences our behavior and the people we go with (we will not act the same in a buffet if we are accompanied by colleagues work or family)”, explains Andrea Arroyo, psychologist and dietitian-nutritionist, researcher in eating behavior, founding member of the ACT Working Group of the College of Psychology of Catalonia and author of the book Psychology of Food, in RAC1.cat.

We think that our eating behavior is simple (if I’m hungry, I eat), but the specialist explains that it is not. “It is very complex, many factors intervene.” In addition to the companions with whom we go to the buffet, aspects such as our mood at the time of the meal, what the buffet is like, how it is decorated, how the food is presented, our tastes, our state of health influence our behaviour. physical…

There is an element to take into account, which is our reward system. “He is in charge of rewarding us, and for us food is a source of pleasure. Depending on how our reward system is activated, we will need to eat more or less”, says Arroyo.

In English it is called craving, it is that nerve or anguish that produces the intense desire for something, the craving for food. Depending on your personality, you will manage it more or less impulsively.

For Arroyo, our attitude towards a free buffet is also conditioned by the types of hunger, which are various. “Basically, there is the physiological appetite, the need we have in the stomach to eat food, and the emotional appetite.” If we eat too fast, habitual behavior in a buffet, we don’t give the brain time to receive the order from the stomach saying that it is already full, through the neuroendocrine receptors. “There are certain signals from the stomach that travel to the brain to tell it that we are already full,” he continues.

According to Arroyo, sometimes “we don’t practice conscious eating, we don’t eat because of a stimulus of nutritional need, but rather because of an emotional and visual hunger. The buffets are in charge of making everything beautiful so that you can see it, and there is also olfactory hunger, which is what comes to us when it smells very good to eat, as it happens in some supermarkets with the bread that has just been baked”.

But we must not get carried away by non-conscious eating. “It’s better to stay in tune with our satiety and hunger needs, and stop when we’re full.”

Eating at a buffet of good gastronomic quality can be a real pleasure for the senses, and a healthy intake can be made. “You always have to eat from freedom and from your own respect, because the way you eat is how you relate to yourself. If you are very rigid, you will not allow yourself to eat some things, and you must be able to eat what you want, but always respecting your body”, says Arroyo.

Regarding the choice of food that we make in a buffet, it should be remembered that there are surely healthier options than others. “We must try to make a meal that is as balanced as possible, choosing the least processed ingredients.”

This article was originally published on RAC1.