"When U.S. researchers offered rats high-calorie foods such as bacon, sausage, cake and chocolate on top of their healthier but less appetizing chow, the animals overconsumed calories, quickly gained weight and continued to overeat — even when they knew they'd receive an unpleasant electric shock."
CBC News March 29, 2010
We know giant food companies want us to spend as much money as possible on their stuff so they make it taste as good as possible. Whether it be loaded be bads fats, sugar or salt, many processed foods are designed to get us hooked hopefully for life. There's so much money to be made off of making people overweight.
But could these companies that make crap food be as evil as tobacco companies? Do they need their products to come with warning labels about their addictive properties and warnings about known health impacts? I think so.
"The scientists also found decreased levels of a specific dopamine receptor -- a brain chemical that allows a feeling of reward -- in overweight rats, as has been reported in humans addicted to drugs, the article said." Reuters
Maybe instead of rotting teeth or cancerous lungs, we need warning labels with pictures of lumps of fat around our hearts or a picture of a diabetic stabbing their leg with a needle or maybe even pictures of cancerous tumors of the colon.
Maybe the printed warnings could be "this product has the same addictive properties as heroin".
"These data are, as far as we know, the strongest support for the idea that overeating of palatable food can become habitual in the same manner and through the same mechanisms as consumption of drugs of abuse," said study co-author Paul Kenny, a neurobiologist at the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla." Read more
Please do not use this as a reason to explain away a lack of control when it comes to overeating crap food. Ultimately, we've got to take responsibility for ourselves and not blame the man for everything.
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