PieFedELI5 why I logically understand McDonald's food is low quality and bad for me but I crave it like crack?
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The same reason people will logically understand that crack is bad for them but crave it like crack
This is actually shockingly remarkably true.
There is very little to differentiate your addiction to junk food and your addiction to sex or your addiction to crack rock.
There is a chemical in your brain called dopamine which is an important part of how we feel pleasure. Use of recreational drugs and alcohol causes a rush of this chemical and that is part of the pleasure we feel from using them. The problem is that regular use of such chemicals causes us to have lower levels of dopamine when we are not using them. We end up feeling a desire for the drug or booze to get our dopamine levels back up.
Diets high in sugar, salt, and carbs also causes a dopamine rush. When you eat that food regularly, it lowers your normal dopamine levels, just like drugs and alcohol do, if not to the same level. That is why you feel that craving. Eating such food occasionally is fine, but if you do it to often, you can literally get an addiction to it.
Edit to add -
You mentioned that fast foods are low quality and bad for you. That is true, but but only in high quantities. Fats and sugars were high value foods to our ancient ancestors. Fats are very high source of energy. You get more than twice the energy from a gram of fat than you get from a gram of carbohydrates or protein. Sugars are easily digested making them a source of quick energy compared to other carbs, fats, or proteins. Eating these kinds of foods gave us a survival advantage over those who didn’t, at least until we learned the agricultural skills to make them easy to acquire. Now, many or most people can get such foods any time they want and though they no longer give us an advantage, and eating a lot of them is actually harmful in the long run, those ancient taste preferences still remain in our evolved programing.
We evolved for a life of scarcity, but now we live in a world of plenty.
based middle of the road, analytical, truthful and realistic take.
Therefore, the cure for fast food addiction is recreational drugs and alcohol!
RFK, is that you?
Came here to post this and found it already +1 to this being one of the main reason it’s causing cravings.
If you want further reading look up information on the pleasure - reward circuitry in the brain.
Overactivate dopamine receptors and the receptors shut down, like all receptors.
Lack of dopamine signalling is Parkinson’s disease.
Grease, sugar, and a lot of chemicals.
Don’t forget loads of salt!
Like– every step of the way, fast food places have an opportunity to aim for ‘healthier’ or ‘more delicious’ choices, overwhelmingly with profit-making in mind. That’s the main thing to keep in mind.
IIRC, McD’s and various other chains even design venting and such to get the smell of the cooking food (chemically enhanced) in to the surrounding area. You know, so that more people can pay a fortune to get a food rush that doubles as a health disaster.
McDonald’s smells like a dirty deep fryer, it’s fucking disgusting.
I tend to feel the same, but those suckers certainly know their broad audience.
It’s science, I don’t know the specifics of craving but I know they spent a lot of money to figure out how give you that feeling.
I’d guess sugar and fat, lots of both
I know about a funky thing where if you have equal amounts of sweet, salty, bitter, umami and sour you feel less full after eating it. It might be completely unrelated though.
A very large culprit is your gut’s microbiome (the bacteria that live in our gut). The more junk food you eat, the more you will grow your craving for it.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/202303/where-cravings-are-bred
You haven’t aged enough to where it feels like you have a rat trying to chew through your colon from the inside out when you eat it. That will cure you of the addiction right quick.
fast food isn’t bad for you, unless you eat only fast food for years. if you wanna recreate the MCD taste at home, try sprinkling MSG on your food.
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fun fact, the 2k calorie diet is absolute bullshit and the FDA themselves said it shouldn’t be taken as “anything over this threshold is bad”.
says who? if fast food is the only food you can afford and you don’t own a kitchen, that is the healthier option to take because the alternative is starving.
Humans also weren’t meant to work 2 jobs and 14 hour days and yet living under capitalism, your diet adapts to your environment in order to help you make it to the next day.
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how many homeless people have you given cash to so they can fulfill your fantasy of living a healthy upstanding citizen’s lifestyle? do you give out hot meals to people in need? if not, stfu and stop being sinful by judging people in need
Do I look like I know what an MSG is?
You can buy it in a bottle like spices. It looks like salt. I like to replace the regular amount of salt with 50% msg and 50% salt when cooking
Monosodium glutamat
Now I want a doormat with “monosodium gluta” inscribed on it
Magic Salt of God
Glutamate, it’s an analog for an important brain signaling amino acid. Many people get drowsy or get blurred vision from MSG, but industry has funded influencers and bots for years telling us that is a myth.
Just go to the grocery store and buy some?
MSG king of flawor (or so I hear)