When Moss visited a Kellogg’s Research Development factory that was making Pop Tarts, the smell sent him decades into the past. Our memory of food can create intense cravings. Memory plays a powerful role in the way we eat. Companies are aware of this and take full advantage. That’s why we’re more attracted to a product that has the word “new” splashed across the front. “Just give us something new and the brain gets excited by that,” Moss said. One scientist described people as “infovores”. The body reacts much faster to sugar than it does to alcohol or nicotine. Power of the compulsion is proportional to the speed of the biological response. Addictive compulsions range in a continuum depending on the cause. About 50 years ago, the food industry deliberately changed the nature of food to tap into that instinct. Companies exploit this primal vulnerability. Because of the way our bodies are built, we’re hardwired to love food and overeat. Here, Moss is in conversation with guest host Leslie Beck, the Globe and Mail columnist and Medcan director of food and nutrition.įood can be even more addictive than hard drugs. Snacking more during the pandemic? Ever wondered whether you’re addicted to food? The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Michael Moss, author of the new book, Hooked: Food, Free Will, and How the Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions as well as 2014’s Salt Sugar Fat, argues that the processed-food industry has engineered their products to compel us to eat them-causing all sorts of health problems at the population level.
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