But what about if you're eating a meal, and you have a diet soda with it. There's still plenty of calories to burn. Does that mean your body may be burning them faster, because they think they should be consuming food + sugary drink? Is there some kind of mismatch problem in this case?
I find it somewhat hard to believe that based on taste my body can determine how many calories it has to process. There's residual taste in the mouth after you swallow, you can eat at different rates, etc. There is a taste satiety (oh, no more rich food/salty food/sugary food) which comes into play, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're full. If anything this can be proven by the fact that you can eat too much before your body registers that you're full, which takes a few minutes.