"Thanks, Ronald, you have the best burgers." (Thank you!)
No problem son, take it easy, yo. (You're welcome! Have a nice day!)
Food is addictive. In this article from Slate, Dr. Wang (yeah) explains the paralells between food we eat today and cocaine. As far fetched and fantastical that Slate is, what Wang is saying is almost disturbingly true. There are enough problems with the things that Americans eat on a daily basis already- the fact that it's a bunch of empty calories, high fat/ sugar/ cholesterol, and combine this with the stagnant lifestyle that many of these people live, having the food be addictive is not another thing that needs to be added to the mix.
One of the most interesting parallels between cocaine and food to me was the following:
"The rats in the study that were fed these unhealthy foods developed a tolerance to the pleasure it gave them and had to consume more and more to experience the same level of satisfaction"
People have a tolerance to food pleasure? That blows my mind. I get that we have tolerances to almost everything, but the amount of pleasure from food shouldn't be something that requires a tolerance.
Cigarettes, for instance, are an incredibly addictive, legal and easy to obtain substance, and they are used by millions of Americans daily. And like junk food, they're awful for you.
Another point that Wang addresses is that "We make our food very similar to cocaine now." What he means by this statement is that food is highly concentrated, and we use the "good stuff" parts of food now. He uses the example of corn, where hundreds of years ago, people ate corn, but now they eat high fructose corn syrup. Just like how hundreds of years ago, people chewed the leaves of the cocaine plants, where now the chemical ingredients are extracted out into cocaine.
I wonder how long it will be until people start freebasing their cheeseburgers or injecting their french fries.
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