Highly Processed Foods Can Be Considered Addictive Like Tobacco Products

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[–]Zapped 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (14 children)

Sugar/starches are addictive. In nature, they are so hard to come by that when we taste them, our bodies make us "load up" due to the feast and famine cycles of living as hunter-gatherers.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (13 children)

Aren't humans just pretty much the only great ape to not consume sugars en masse?

[–]Zapped 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (12 children)

Mountain Gorillas eat mostly stems and leaves, with fruit being only a small part of their diet.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (11 children)

Didn't you kinda sorta miss the fact that they consume 40 pounds of greens per day? Aren't succulent greens actually rather high in sugars if you start counting them by the pound? Isn't this normally the only alternative to sugar consumption for great apes? Don't we pretty much observe the same behavior in orangutans when their favorite fruits aren't in season? Wouldn't they probably consume large amounts of sugar every day if they could?

[–]Zapped 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

Please read my unedited comment above and tell me where it contradicts this.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Wouldn't 40 pounds of greens (such as romaine lettuce) contain roughly 200 grams of sugar?

[–]Zapped 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

How much fiber and protein are in that? How does that affect blood sugar/hormone levels as opposed to straight sugar?

[–]Canbot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

This is the crux of it all. In nature sugar has to be extracted from fibrous sources which means you need to eat a lot of the source material to get a usable amount of sugar. That is most likely why we evolved to get more hungery and eat far more when we consume sweet food.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Aren't you arguing that fiber has some sort of magical role in the body? Couldn't you just extract the relevant polyphenols and consume them alongside the sugar? Isn't arguing for a zero-sugar diet pretty much just rejecting the evidence that every great ape consumes massive amounts of sugar?

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Aren't you arguing that fiber has some sort of magical role in the body?

No.

Isn't arguing for a zero-sugar diet pretty much just rejecting the evidence that every great ape consumes massive amounts of sugar?

No.

If you are trying to lose weight then eating sugar is counter productive because your body will react by making you more hungery and over consume.

Nothing about that statement is false, nor does any of your categorization apply.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Isn't blood sugar just energy for the body that gets stored as glycogen in the liver if unused?

[–]Zapped 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Doesn't excess sugar get stored as fat throughout the body once the liver stores are full?

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Doesn't 200g - 400g of sugar pretty much entirely fulfill the body's metabolic needs for a day?

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

༼⁠ ⁠つ⁠ ⁠◕⁠‿⁠◕⁠ ⁠༽⁠つ food science

Saying highly processed foods are bad and calling it a day is a little weak. We engineer food to make it taste better. It is the goal of every cook, every chef, every food manufacturer to produce a good tasting product. And we use science to do this.

Salt. Fat. Acid. Heat. Sugar. Chemical additives. These are some of our favorite food things.

u/melodic_programmer always gives me shit I use Knorr brand bouillon a lot. I use it because it has msg, disodium guanylate, and disodium inosinate. I add those to my salt as well. It makes things taste better than they otherwise would.

This boils down to: yes, we wouldn't overeat if our food tasted worse.

[–]jet199 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Imo highly processed foods do not taste better than foods cooked from scratch. They only taste better than the cardboard flavour they would have without the extra flavourings. They process foods to extend self life and reduce costs then have to process it some more to get people to actually eat it.

Also a whole of lot unhealthy people gorge themselves on the blandest foods, taste isn't what drives their eating habits.

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

༼⁠ ⁠つ⁠ ⁠◕⁠‿⁠◕⁠ ⁠༽⁠つ Jet

highly processed

That's kinda a bullshit term.

do not taste better than foods cooked from scratch

Not when I do it, true, but everyone else, I dunno.

Also a whole of lot unhealthy people gorge themselves on the blandest foods, taste isn't what drives their eating habits.

I dunno am kinda too toasted to mount any sort of credible defense. Can I see more pics of you and your dog instead?