My short answer to the question in the title is “NO!!”
As you ask for anecdotes, here’s mine. No food is a “superstimulus” for me in the way that Eliezer describes. Some years back, I noticed the size of cakes in cafes double. (I don’t know why, but it seemed to happen in them all at about the same time.) I have responded by no longer buying them. Each one is two or three times what I would have when having coffee and a cake at home. Even the croissants are often giant-sized, and these days almond croissants seem to be made by boiling the whole thing in marzipan.
I don’t put actual sugar from a bowl into or onto anything except a modest sprinkle on a bowl of berries of some sort, which happens maybe once in a couple of weeks. It takes many years to go through a bag of sugar at that rate. I do not drink soft drinks. I have never attempted to measure how much “added sugar” I consume each day, but just eyeballing the matter I expect it is far below even the “recommended” limit of 36 grams.
This is not the result of any sort of deliberate denial of my desires; on the contrary, I eat what I want when I want it. I find overeating quite unpleasant.
A diet of pasta and sugar sounds revolting, so I’m afraid I won’t be conducting the experiment, hence this being a comment, not an answer.
My short answer to the question in the title is “NO!!”
As you ask for anecdotes, here’s mine. No food is a “superstimulus” for me in the way that Eliezer describes. Some years back, I noticed the size of cakes in cafes double. (I don’t know why, but it seemed to happen in them all at about the same time.) I have responded by no longer buying them. Each one is two or three times what I would have when having coffee and a cake at home. Even the croissants are often giant-sized, and these days almond croissants seem to be made by boiling the whole thing in marzipan.
I don’t put actual sugar from a bowl into or onto anything except a modest sprinkle on a bowl of berries of some sort, which happens maybe once in a couple of weeks. It takes many years to go through a bag of sugar at that rate. I do not drink soft drinks. I have never attempted to measure how much “added sugar” I consume each day, but just eyeballing the matter I expect it is far below even the “recommended” limit of 36 grams.
This is not the result of any sort of deliberate denial of my desires; on the contrary, I eat what I want when I want it. I find overeating quite unpleasant.
A diet of pasta and sugar sounds revolting, so I’m afraid I won’t be conducting the experiment, hence this being a comment, not an answer.