Did you know that sugar-loaded foods are essentially drugs to our brains? Why is it that you crave foods that are bad for you, but you don’t find yourself binging on wild caught salmon? We can become biologically addicted to sugar just like we can to drugs. There was a study that proved that high sugar foods (or high glycemic index foods) are addictive in the same way as cocaine and heroin. In fact, some animal studies show that sugar is eight times more addictive than cocaine. Foods that raise blood sugar quickly trigger a special region in the brain, the brain’s pleasure center, that makes you feel good and drives you to seek out more of that feeling. This might have served us well in a time before processed foods when we lived off the land and ate what was in season. Finding berries or honey would have helped our body store up nutrients at a time when those nutrients would have soon become out of season. However, triggering this desire to eat more processed foods does everything but help our bodies.
80% of foods on the market have added sugar. Many packaged foods that are thought to be “healthy” have added sugar. Ever look at the sugar content of your yogurt or your protein bar? Chances are it has quite a bit of added sugar. Food companies intentionally add sugar and sugar like chemicals to foods to make us crave their products. They have scientists whose only job is to figure out how to make foods more addictive. You may wonder why you are still craving some bad foods when all you’ve had to eat for the day was your yogurt and protein bar and maybe something with an artificial sweetener. This is why you are still having sugar cravings. Our food in the 21st century has hijacked our taste buds, our brain chemistry, our hormones, and our metabolism. There’s a lot of “food like” substances out there. This is what a majority of Americans eat. We aren’t actually eating whole foods that nourish the body.