Can Foods Really be Addictive?
At first glance, it seems a stretch to think that foods can be addicting. They’re all natural! However, this logic does not hold. Almost all addictive substances are derived from natural ingredients. Alcohol is fermented from barley, grains, potatoes etc. Nicotine is derived from tobacco plants. Marijuana is derived from the Cannabis plant. Opium and its narcotic derivatives morphine and heroin are derived from poppies. But they can all be processed into addictive substances.
Through processing, the addicting substance (alcohol, nicotine, cannabis) is concentrated to an unnatural degree and usually enhanced with other chemicals (sugar with alcohol or menthol with nicotine). The same holds true for foods, too. A natural food is not particularly addictive, but through ultra-processing, ingredients are concentrated, speed of absorption can be tweaked, and additives enhance the rewarding experience. If you can create a very quick, high dopamine ‘hit’, it is potentially addictive.
Creating addictive substances is straightforward. Super-size the dose of sugar and refined…
