The Brain And Sugar

A new University of Michigan study confirms what has long been suspected: highly processed foods like chocolate, pizza and French fries are among the most addictive. The first change was the advent of agriculture and animal domestication ~10,000 years ago, leading people to become producers by gathering and securing food supply ( 31 ). Of course, farming depended on climate and plagues which could decimate crops resulting in famine ( 3 ). The second change was the industrialization of food supply (industrial revolution of the nineteen century) allowing for mass production of flour and sugar ( 32 ), with the ulterior manufacturing, in the last decades, of processed and ultra-processed foods that are inexpensive and highly caloric (abundant sugars, salts, fats) ( 11 , 33 ). These two developments are linked to food availability and how food is refined and commercialized.
The average American consumes 19.5 teaspoons of added sugar every day , and 66 pounds of added sugar per year, which, according to the American Heart Association, is just way too damn much There's sugar in our bread, pasta sauces, chips, fruit drinks — any way food manufacturers can sneak sugar into our diet, they'll do it.



Thus, in both cases (food or drugs) an evolutionary mismatch” has occurred by which human technology has been able to alter environmental conditions much faster than the changes that occur in our central nervous system ( 46 , 47 ). Ultimately, early in our evolution the ingestion of food or drugs emerged as positive reinforcement and evolved common neural circuits for reward, and that has not changed over time, owing to their sharing of similar neural mechanisms in addictive behavior ( 48 - 50 ).
In addition to promoting weight gain, sugar has been linked with a number of other health conditions, including fatty liver disease; brain insulin resistance - and the accompanying increased risk of metabolic syndrome and diabetes; cancer; and tooth decay.

We're all hard-wired to like foods that are sweet, but we want to make sure those foods are items that have natural sweetness (as opposed to added sugars) AND decent nutritional content such as fresh fruits, dried fruits, and some of the sweeter vegetables including carrots and beets.
The ingredients used to create Fruit Mentos are sugar, wheat glucose syrup, hydrogenated coconut oil, citric acid, rice starch, gum arabic, gellan gum, sucrose esters of fatty acids, natural and artificial flavors; carmine, paprika oleoresin, beta-carotene and beetroot red as colors; and carnauba wax and beeswax, as glazing agents.

And yet another effect of sugar that will interfere with your weight loss goals is its impact on blood sugar Straight sugar is immediately absorbed into your bloodstream, causing an immediate rush of energy — a " sugar high" Your blood sugar quickly drops, which can lead to a craving for more sugar.
Rats fed daily intermittent sugar and chow escalate their sugar intake and increase their intake during the first hour of daily access, which we define as a binge” ( Colantuoni et al., 2001 ). The animals with ad libitum access to a sugar solution tend to drink it throughout the day, including their inactive period.