Why can I still eat dessert when I am already full? Do I really have another stomach?

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When you have just finished a hearty meal at a restaurant and are feeling a little uncomfortable, your pants seem to be getting tighter and you simply cannot eat another bite, the tray of dessert passes by you and your hunger magically returns. It is as if we have another stomach dedicated to dessert after a meal.

There are many reasons behind this. Len Epstein, professor of pediatrics at the State University of New York and director of the Department of Behavioral Medicine at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo, told Live Science: "Sometimes, people stop eating not because they are full, but because they are tired of the food and feel they have had enough . After knowing the specific taste of the food in front of them, it is difficult for them to produce more taste stimulation. However, if you add new tastes, smells and even textures to the food, it will be easy for people to overcome the feeling of 'Oh, I'm full'."

This phenomenon is called sensory-specific satiety, which refers to the fact that when a person repeatedly eats a certain food, their interest in that food decreases, and then they feel full, at which point new food types may become more appealing. For example, in a 2011 experiment conducted by Epstein, 32 women were divided into two groups. One group ate macaroni and cheese every day for five consecutive days, and the other group ate macaroni and cheese only once a week for five weeks. The researchers found that the women who ate macaroni and cheese every day ate less than those who ate macaroni and cheese once a week.

In another study published by Epstein in 2013, he divided 31 children into three groups: the first group ate the same macaroni and cheese for five consecutive days, the second group could choose different brands of macaroni and cheese, and the last group could choose different kinds of high-calorie foods, such as fried chicken nuggets and cheeseburgers. The results showed that the children who had multiple choices ate more than the children who were only offered macaroni and cheese. Epstein believes that this result is the same as people eating dessert after eating salty food, or eating suddenly "bigger" at a buffet with a variety of dishes.

“You can keep giving people new foods and keep them eating until they can’t eat anymore,” Epstein said, “which is one of the reasons people keep eating until they’re full.

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Some experts believe that this desire for food variety reflects an evolutionary adaptation , as people need to get essential nutrients, such as vitamins and protein, from different foods.

"In the long run, we need a good mix of nutrients," Barbara Rolls, director of the Human Feeding Behavior Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University, told Live Science. "But right now it seems to be counterproductive. We have access to a wide variety of high-calorie foods, and that variety is spurring overconsumption, so it may be leading to more obesity."

When a person eats a piece of dessert, a chemical called dopamine is released in the brain. It's associated with feelings of reward and pleasure. If eating dessert is part of your daily routine, "dopamine that was initially released after you ate food becomes released whenever you think about eating," Epstein says. This is the cause of some binge eating behaviors, making you more likely to reach for a piece of pie after a big meal.

According to Rawls, if you want to cut down on your post-meal junk food intake, there are several ways to take advantage of "sensory-specific satiety." For example, you can choose other sweet foods, such as fruit , so that you still have variety in your diet but eat in a healthier way.

"What you need to do is keep a variety of healthy, low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods that you enjoy on hand so that when you want to snack, you have more healthy options to choose from," Rawls said.