our behavior. From rats we’ve learned, for example, that
fructose in particular may promote its own consumption.
When rats were fed the same number of calories from either
fructose or glucose, glucose (like potato starch) induced
satiety (a feeling of fullness). Fructose, on the other hand,
actually provoked more feeding—it somehow made the rats
hungrier. The lesson to be inferred is that sugar, and perhaps
especially fructose, may actually be causing you to overeat
(more on this below).
These insights are crucial, because we tend to feel guilty
when we go through an entire bag of chips (or pint of ice
cream, or box of cookies). Been there? Me too. What
nobody tells us as we peruse the aisles lined with air-
pumped bags of bliss is that these foods are literally
engineered to create insatiable overconsumption, designed
in labs by well-paid food scientists to be hyper-palatable.
Salt, sugar, fat, and often wheat flour are combined to
maximize pleasure, driving your brain’s reward system to an
artificial “bliss point” that simulates the addictive properties
of controlled substances. Remember the famous slogan
“Once you pop, you can’t stop”? It’s now a truism with
scientific backing.
Foods Uniquely Designed to Screw Up Your
Brain
Bagels
Biscuits
Cake