HIGHLY PROCESSED WORLD –
Oct. 2, 2021 – Our brains are designed to find high-calorie foods rewarding to ensure we survive the periods of famine. Carbohydrates (like sugar) and fat are high in calories and trigger the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain. For much of human history, the best hit of sugar we could hope for was finding some fruit. Fat would come from hunting down an animal or finding some nuts. While our brains are still in the Stone Age, the food industry has become skilled in jacking up carbohydrates and fats to unheard of levels and combining them with scores of additives to create unnaturally rewarding foods. These highly processed foods trigger reward responses in the brain that far exceed the levels associated with naturally occurring foods.
Addictive drugs and highly processed foods are created using very similar processes. For example, humans refine and process a naturally occurring substance (like a tobacco leaf) and process it into a product (like cigarettes) that has unnaturally high levels of a rewarding substance (like nicotine) and then add scores of additives (like ammonia and menthol) to further enhance it. These addictive drugs hijack the same reward centers of the brain that are so powerfully activated by highly processed foods. In fact, highly processed foods and addictive drugs are ofte substances, but bad…
