The End of Craving Recovering the Lost Wisdom of Eating Well

There's a wonderful book that is called the End of Cravings by Mark Shatzer he also wrote the dorito effect but he talks a little bit about what you're talking about which is ideal that processed food is actually the ultimate sort of food based variable reward so in the way that it like things that I mean I'm speaking expert here but things that the body can't predict what the outcome is going to be are going to kind of get you in that dopamine motivation pathway and that's actually what processed food is doing is it's every time we eat a different we think we're eating a tortilla but it's like completely different than all the other weird tortillas ultra processed tortillas on the shelf so every time we eat tortilla and our brain is this incredible prediction machine and as it's coming towards our mouth we're predicting what the load is going to be but we have no idea is it a coke zero is it a diet coke with aspartame is it a regular coke it all tastes the same but the nutrients that our gut are totally different so we end up actually triggering the motivation pathways because of processed food representing a variable reward whereas every time you eat a ribeye your body's pretty much getting a similar thing each time and so the prediction matching is going to be more conducive to getting off the motivation treadmill for more which I think is so fascinating.

I am the writer in residence at the Modern Diet and Physiology Research Center, which is based at McGill University. And I'm the author of three books, Steak, The Dorito Effect, and The End of Craving.