Originally Posted by Calianna

I was about to say pretty much the same thing.

If you don't spend a lot of time seeking out new foods to try, new and different combinations of flavors, tantalizing your taste buds (both during the mouth watering anticipation phase of "Oooh, that sounds good!", and the lip-licking eating phase), then it becomes just food to you, instead of "Food, glorious food!"

I think that's part of the reason that 800 calories/day of franken-shakes and soups works for them - they're resigned to the fact that this is what they're going to eat, this is all there is for them to eat, so they don't think about it any more than simply consuming it to ease hunger.