It's not our fault. Processed food may be addictive

It's almost as if structuring the world around the profit motive might be disastrous and deadly.

This is what comes from worshiping capitalism. Poisonous food. Poisonous water. Poisonous psyches. Poisonous air. Poison everywhere.

IT IS YOUR FAULT U FAT BITCH

I didn't believe it until it happened to me but it's true: When you stop eating carbs, you stop craving carbs.

Nobody can eat just one

This is well known - the salt, fat and sugar in processed food triggers the desire for more.

The few times I indulge in fast food, I'm always amazed at how 'empty' I feel afterwards - like I didn't really eat.

r1 the 2001 book [italic]Fast Food Nation[/italic] does a really, really amazing job of talking about all the cultural and economic ramifications of our nutrition, food production, etc. being industrialized.

[quote]"...certain foods were especially likely to elicit “addictive-like” eating behaviors, such as intense cravings, a loss of control, and an inability to cut back despite experiencing harmful consequences and a strong desire to stop eating them. At the top of the list were pizza, chocolate, potato chips, cookies, ice cream, French fries and cheeseburgers."

Pizza, cheeseburgers, ice cream etc. have always been around.

So what exactly is this new secret ingredient that's creating uncontrolled craving?

(the article is just so much bullshit)

r7, take a walk through Trader Joe's. I love TJs but a lot of what they sell is junk food. Being vegan saves my ass since most of it has milk, eggs or butter. The more popular the plant based diet becomes the more vegan junk food they create. I'm trying to stick to whole foods.

You mean whole foods such as milk, eggs, and butter?

R8 That doesn't answer my question. The question is simple. "Pizza, cheeseburgers, ice cream etc. have always been around. So what exactly is this new secret ingredient that's creating uncontrolled craving?"

High-fructose corn syrup. That didn’t exist until a Japanese scientist invented it in the 1960s, so it couldn’t possibly be put in food before then. Neither could Roundup be used to grow that corn because that was not invented until the 1970s.

Fat people make so many excuses, just because you SEE junk food doesn't mean YOU HAVE TO BUY IT AND EAT IT! are you really that fucking weak?

R12 doesn't seem to understand addiction.

There's also the matter of food deserts and food affordability. For many, junk food is all that is available or affordable.

[quote] Fat people make so many excuses, just because you SEE junk food doesn't mean YOU HAVE TO BUY IT AND EAT IT! are you really that fucking weak?

Bartenders can ask drunks “don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Waiters and grocers are denied that same privilege.

R11 There is no high fructose corn syrup in a Big Mac etc. Not even in the ingredients of the bun.

R14 what an absurd comparison.

A vegan defending McDonald’s. You do know they didn’t become wall-to-wall fatties until after they stopped frying their fries in beef tallow, right?

[quote] [R14] what an absurd comparison.

It is not absurd. There are social costs to obesity just like there are social costs to alcoholism. Yet one is punished and the other encouraged.

R13 Food deserts are very rare. And as far as affordability goes, fast food is NOT cheaper than buying food and cooking.

Certainly problems exist for people who do not have transportation or a kitchen etc. And those problems;ems should be understood.

But for most people eating healthy is simply a choice.

No one is encouraging alcoholism, fat ass.

R18 The comparison is BEYOND ridiculous.

You honestly believe we should stand in judgement before a waiter or the cashier at a supermarket telling us when we've had/ bought enough food?

Please explain to us exactly how this would work.

Thanks in advance.

r9, as you know I mean plant based whole foods.

Anything that makes you feel good can become addictive. Junk food does this. Carbs boost your serotonin.

[quote] Food deserts are very rare. And as far as affordability goes, fast food is NOT cheaper than buying food and cooking.

Healthy food is and people don’t have time to cook.

[quote] It is not absurd. There are social costs to obesity just like there are social costs to alcoholism. Yet one is punished and the other encouraged.

Anal sex does as well.

Of course they’re pumped with additives [italic]and[/italic] addictives.

When I was a kid I was addicted to sugar. I wasn’t allowed to have “junk” foods at home so when I was old enough I would go out and buy my own. A 2 L of Coke would last a few hours between my dad drinking it and me. So because my mom deprived me I wanted it more it seems. I still have a problem with sugar. It is the devil!

I don't know, I make good ice cream and I want to eat just as much of it as I do Haagen Daaz. Same thing goes for homemade potato chips (mmm.. so tasty), pizza and a lot of other freshly made food we have at home.

But I never want to eat as many cookies from the store as I do the Brown Butter Chocolate Chip circles of outrageous deliciousness I bake myself. All hail Chris Morocco.

I try to buy few processed food items for consumption. I am fairly slim, but try to avoid sugary items which is very hard to do. Once in awhile, I will buy quality ice cream due to a craving for it. Rarely do I buy fast food.

Fuck the food deserts, people around me eat real food like pork chops and greens and corn bread, corn on the cob, beef tips rice, fish etc. Most of it they make themselves, but they eat huge amounts of it, like pigs. They cook all the time, so very little fast food. Stop making people victims, where's the personal responsibility?

I can believe it. Back when I ate meat, whenever I was in the middle of nowhere and ate at McDonalds for lack of alternatives, I'd eat a couple of their nasty burgers and think "Those aren't good"... but then for days afterwards I'd want more of those not-good burgers!

Very strange experience. I mean not food cravings, I've always have had plenty of food cravings, it's just that the McDonalds burgers are the only foods I've craved after disliking.

[quote]Healthy food is and people don’t have time to cook.

Yes they do.

Parents with big work loads and lots of kids get a pass. (But why have kids if you are not going to be responsible?)

But for most people, they have the time.

I would stop and get a cheeseburger and med Diet Coke after every work shift because it was cheap and quick- then every third meal was too cold, stale bread, dried out, etc. Even when the burger was disappointing it required deliberate attention and I had to force change this habit (I bring meals and eat closer to the end of my shift so I feel full). I agree the food is addictive but after awhile I felt sick and know that I’m clogging my arteries with the junk.

Once a week is more than enough.

Lots of angry old cranks here.

Just ate supermarket own-brand chocolate due to a menstrual craving (I’ve run out of magnesium supplements & salts), which isn’t something I do usually, and now my head aches and I regret it deeply. Likely my skin will break out tomorrow, too.

Cheap chocolate has traces of lead in it from processing, among other nasty chemicals. I didn’t want to eat it, but my body was yelling at me for cocoa products, and sadly when you’re a woman you can’t really deny that voice without going berserk and smashing shit up.

I also crave bread and meat like crazy when I’m on the rag. I go feral with it in bad months, like tearing it off in chunks with my hands and teeth. It’s probably disturbing to watch.

Lesson learned, I need to stock extra magnesium and iron in, so my stocks don’t run out.

And, apparently, angry jerks as well, r34.

Is that cookie recipe that good R28? I’m kind of partial to this recipe myself.......

And yet, millions and millions of people don't have a problem with it.

R8 - are you the vegan from the other thread that was advisinf me how to cut back on animal products? Do you think your BMI is like that due to your diet?

I did lose a load of weight once eating from Trader Joe's but I was doing a lot of vegetables, lentils, fish, and pastas based on quinoa.

Sugar in all forms is the Secret ingredient and highly addictive.

R30 - I disagree. There are people who work two jobs and trust me, when I did start eating healthy and organic, my grocery bill skyrocketed. Also, I noticed something strange. At my healthiest health nut phase, when I was cooking everything and had the time and $ to buy the best organic produce and work out 5 times a week, I was still not in the shape I got to when I came over in 2016 for my first time working in Romania and suddenly discovered the market where the farmers bring stuff fresh from their own small farms. That did it. I got down to an ideal weight, never felt better and people said it looked like I had gotten 10 years younger (and no, I am not one of those DL-ers who says I am 56 but look 18). It was true and now, unfortunately, with COVID, the farmers aren't allowed to come and I am buying at the supermarket and cooking all my meals most of the time fresh but it is just not the same by far. Furthermore, I also noticed that, when I get homesick I wanted a cheeseburger from McDonald's here....which I never ate back home. Well, it was so damned soothing and comforting and tasty that suddenly, I started having intense cravings (and I am not like that by nature...I like more spicy food).

Another factor is where you live. I lived in an area with a variety of supermarkets and farmer's markets in LA. However, one trainer at the gym told me she had lived and grown up in a predominantly African-American neighborhood with a single mom who worked two jobs and she kind of grew up on 7-11 food because a) her mom had no time to cook; and, b) it was the closest and ONLY thing around back then in her area and she had no car or way to get to the big markets. This was in the 1980's but still, I can see how people would get health problems.

In today's world, food, and especially good food has become a complex issue in developed nations.

For the poster who said McDonald's doesn't have HFCS in their Big Mac or other products. Either you live in a country where that ingredient is banned, or you are QUITE WRONG.

The ketchup alone, never mind the dressing, in many of their items it is everywhere.

I also give a massive side-eye to soy. Why is that in everything now? It is in shit that it has no business being in. As a filler for a meat based processed food, well, I guess, but now it is in nearly everything. I found it in a jar of olives. Why?

Not everyone cooks, not everyone can afford a good restaurant for each meal, food deserts are indeed a thing, but still, look at the labels, do (and don't) what you can, and try to avoid the companies that literally depend on your addiction.

R15 Well, McDonald's fries have 19 ingredients.

I remember a 60 Minutes segment decades ago that revealed a lab where flavorings were created for McDonald's food. I think they said 134 lab-created flavor additives went into their fries.

This excerpt from the book Fast Food Nation is really long, but it talks about how one big lab creates flavor additives for lots of different food on the market.

The McD's buns have are rimmed in sugar.

All of those extra ingredients added to McDonald's fries, combined with the ridiculous removal of the beef tallow which was such an egregious error...result is they taste like shit now. (Not as bad as In-and-Out fries which taste like packing peanuts), but nothing like they used to be, and now this isn't a nostalgia trip, it is the fucking truth.

typo correction: The McD's buns are rimmed in sugar.

[quote]Pizza, cheeseburgers, ice cream etc. have always been around.

What, exactly, is your definition of always? Cuz, no.

[quote]are you the vegan from the other thread that was advisinf me how to cut back on animal products? Do you think your BMI is like that due to your diet?

No, but cutting back on meat would be a lot easier than going vegan from a standard American diet. Be careful to stay away from the franken food, plant based "meat".

Yes, I think my my plant based, mostly whole food diet helps a lot in keeping my BMI low.

I do shop at TJs a lot, but I am careful to stay away from the junk food and they do have a lot of it there.

I'm sure processed food are to a certain extent addictive, especially for some people. I purposely have certain foods occasionally, such as potato chips or my once a month bagel for breakfast.

In addition to high fructose corn syrup that someone mentioned upthread, anything with wheat is what makes people addicted. It's not the wheat of yesteryear and is so manipulated today. It's the root cause of so many health issues like diabetes, arthritis, even mental health issues. I bet every school shooter was on a processed food diet.

God I miss being rimmed in sugar

It's just weird that Americans consider pizza junk food. Italians certainly don't.

Anything prepared with poor ingredients is junk. But pizza prepared properly is anything but.

[quote] Processed food may be addictive

They purposely make it that way. They have food labs that create food to be addictive. Why is the NY Times acting like this is a brand new thing?

R45 - mentioning rimming during a pandemic when I haven't had sex since February 2020...worse than McDonald's or Hitler...torture.

I haven't had McDonald's in a few years. I'm not against it, necessarily, I just haven't had any reason to stop and eat there. It's an "emergency fast food" on the road thing.

Because of the Rona I’m not out and about all day. Therefore I’ve had very little fast food. Before I would only eat it in emergencies as well. I do miss Popeyes, Wendy’s, and McDonald’s.

Popeye's is different. It's good.