if I stick to meats and vegetables, mostly green kind, I don't have the munchies but I have to tend more to the "keto" side to keep it up. Meaning, no starches or sugars but lots of fats and green stuff; that was the key for me, lots of stuff that is green.
yeah there is science behind nearly every diet but the trick is finding out what works for your physically and mentally. Forget to accommodate the mental side and its easy to lapse
And one of the dirty tricks our brains play on us is, a quick but short-lived mood bump is more salient than a constant improvement.
FWIW, for my purposes, "sugar" maybe has more to do with the blood sugar spike than chemistry. Mashed potatoes would count, insofar as, at least according to the tables I've seen, mashed potatoes have just about the highest glycemic index money can buy.
Addiction is often defined [in scientific literature] as having two core elements: Reward and reinforcement (i.e. likelihood to seek repeated exposure).
Addiction in general is a sliding scale. With anything offering both reward and reinforcement being a potential candidate for addiction.
We need protein nutritionally but both the reward and reinforcement are lower than sugar. So if you wish to call protein addictive, you may be able to, but I'd still suggest it is further along the sliding scale towards the "less addictive" side.
Plus if we measure addiction purely by its negative impact on society, sugar addiction claims thousands of lives every year. I don't know how many (if any) lives are claimed by protein addiction.
It's really changed my perspective of sugar.
https://health.usnews.com/wellness/food/articles/2018-11-16/...
A news article in "US News" that cites three people isn't a "scientific consensus." In fact the article itself reference enough contradictory research to show that it couldn't be a consensus (the only "consensus" right now is that there is no consensus and it depends which measure you use to define it).
Plus their entire position boils down to this:
> The research shows, among other key differences, that while similar neuropathways are involved in both drug and sugar consumption, the brain changes that lead to needing more and more cocaine to get the same high aren't seen with sugar.
They're conflating addiction (i.e. habit forming behaviour) with something completely unrelated (biological diminishing returns for addictive substances). According to that definition very few things are actually addictive (which is the crux of this article).
Both the DSM and ICD have a ton of stuff in them that wouldn't fit that tiny definition: Gambling addiction, food addiction, sexual addiction, video game addiction, etc. In fact the majority of the listed addictions aren't according to this article and these researchers.
Second, there seems to be more subtlety to it than could ever be resolved by arguing semantics over vernacular terminology. For example, consider this angle: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/52/14/910
Study your own family and friends, and you will find a dozen different mechanisms people use.
The key is to be aware that there are multiple paths.
Soda specifically is going to give you a nice big dose of sugars which your brain is just going to love. But what you’re also doing is kinda training your brain — well when I had that massive pure sugar dose I felt great, now I’m eating chicken and veggies, and wtf where’s the feel-good rush?
There’s nothing really wrong with that either if you’re at peace and doing as you’re doing, eating a holistically healthy diet. But I do wonder in audience with clinical depression — if those people might be gravitating towards foods that offer quick pick-me-ups that make them feel like themselves finally, but overall make their depression worse especially when the effect is quickly wears off