Yes those are good questions. In answering them, I think one should keep in mind that nobody has ever invented an effective diet doughnut. This suggests to me that it’s not a matter of adding some nutrients to the doughnut recipe; that the problem is inherent in the doughnut.
By analogy, one can look at the attempts to create a non-addictive morphine. Which resulted in heroin. Oops! Probably it is impossible to create a non-addictive morphine because the analgesic aspect of morphine is exactly what makes it addictive.
Although AFAIK there is not scientific consensus on this point, I’m pretty confident it’s a similar problem with foods like doughnuts. They just make you feel too good. And that screws up something in your brain.
Opiates are relatively non-addictive if their use is regulated intelligently, which for some reason all people can’t reliably do themselves. I think the same might make sense for certain foods. I can eat a doughnut every once in a while just fine, but if I started binging them it might be difficult to stop. Same applies to nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, video games and movies for me too.
Opiates are relatively non-addictive if their use is regulated intelligently, which for some reason all people can’t reliably do themselves.
The question of what is or isn’t addictive and why is important but it’s a little beside the point. I am happy and perhaps eager to discuss addiction in the context of dieting and obesity, but at the outset we need to agree on a definition of “addiction.”
My point in bringing up heroin is that it’s basically impossible to separate the good aspects (analgesic) and bad aspects (addictiveness) of morphine because both qualities are the result of the same mechanism. Analogously, it’s (in my opinion) impossible to separate the good aspects (tastiness) and bad aspects (fatteningness) of foods like doughnuts because both qualities are evidently a result of the same mechanism.
Actually I am tempted to go further than that and hypothesize that in both cases a big part of the problem is the part(s) of one’s brain which process pleasurable experiences.
Yes those are good questions. In answering them, I think one should keep in mind that nobody has ever invented an effective diet doughnut. This suggests to me that it’s not a matter of adding some nutrients to the doughnut recipe; that the problem is inherent in the doughnut.
By analogy, one can look at the attempts to create a non-addictive morphine. Which resulted in heroin. Oops! Probably it is impossible to create a non-addictive morphine because the analgesic aspect of morphine is exactly what makes it addictive.
Although AFAIK there is not scientific consensus on this point, I’m pretty confident it’s a similar problem with foods like doughnuts. They just make you feel too good. And that screws up something in your brain.
Opiates are relatively non-addictive if their use is regulated intelligently, which for some reason all people can’t reliably do themselves. I think the same might make sense for certain foods. I can eat a doughnut every once in a while just fine, but if I started binging them it might be difficult to stop. Same applies to nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, video games and movies for me too.
The question of what is or isn’t addictive and why is important but it’s a little beside the point. I am happy and perhaps eager to discuss addiction in the context of dieting and obesity, but at the outset we need to agree on a definition of “addiction.”
My point in bringing up heroin is that it’s basically impossible to separate the good aspects (analgesic) and bad aspects (addictiveness) of morphine because both qualities are the result of the same mechanism. Analogously, it’s (in my opinion) impossible to separate the good aspects (tastiness) and bad aspects (fatteningness) of foods like doughnuts because both qualities are evidently a result of the same mechanism.
Actually I am tempted to go further than that and hypothesize that in both cases a big part of the problem is the part(s) of one’s brain which process pleasurable experiences.