Secret foodies: what our eating habits say

Who among us has not said: “​I am so drawn to …”, further mentioning a specific product, say, halva, cheese, salty snacks or nuts. If we have such clear preferences, should we suspect that we are addicted to food? Is it possible to get rid of the habit of snacking on one or another product? Let’s figure out what the problem is and how to solve it from the point of view of modern nutrition science.

Is there food addiction?

If we talk about addiction as a medical term, then it is wrong to apply it to products. Of course, it is very convenient to put all the blame for the quality of your diet on addiction: you can not understand the causes of excess food intake and not try to work on the quality of the diet.

But according to the WHO classification, the term “addiction” is applicable only in the case of a constant and irresistible desire to use certain psychoactive substances and the inability to continue a quality social life without them. People who snack on cheese or cashews are unlikely to spend most of their time looking for these foods and forego any pleasure.

cheese trap

Recently, the myth that cheese is addictive has become widespread. This belief was fueled by the bestseller The Cheese Trap by physician Neil Barnard, which discusses the theory of dairy addiction.

What is the point? It was found that during the splitting of milk A1 (milk is made from this product), the peptide β-casomorphin-7 is formed. And they suggested that this peptide goes directly to the brain and stimulates the pleasure centers. Gradually, stimulation becomes insufficient, and we want more and more cheese.

This is a very simple and convenient theory, but in reality the mechanism of peptide uptake is rather complicated. The studies conducted do not confirm that the amount of opioid elements found in cheese is sufficient to lead a person into a dependent state. It is also not clear why similar components in other products do not have a similar effect.

Why do we like certain foods?

1. Genetic predisposition

Each of us experiences different taste sensations from food. Hypersensitivity to the taste of sweet or salty explains the frequent consumption of foods of these groups, the addiction of receptors to taste and, as a result, the desire to constantly maintain such a taste background. Only another equally bright taste, for example, salty, can interrupt your favorite sweet taste. So it turns out that we involuntarily “sit down” on sweet or salty foods.

2. Our lifestyle and habits

Everything is important here: activity, ability to cope with stress, how we sleep, whether we eat enough for our age and weight. Even what we eat during the day. For example, the lack of enough vegetables and grains in the diet provokes “biting” and the desire to eat something convenient and small in size – nuts, cheese slices, ready-made salty or sweet-fat snacks.

By the way, the combination of sweet and fatty, as was found in a study with laboratory mice, is most often addictive. This explains the craving for halva or other types of desserts. During the study, which lasted 55 weeks, mice were divided into groups according to the type of food: sweet, fatty, sweet-fatty.

After the diet was changed to normal, mice from the first and second groups still preferred sweet or fatty foods. And the subjects from the third group became so addicted to the sweet-fat diet that when they tried to withdraw, they showed aggressive behavior, fell into panic and deep stress.

impulsive snacking

The habit of certain foods does not always indicate some serious deficiency in the body. This may be due to promiscuity in food, inability to cook, unwillingness to analyze the diet, listen to your body and distinguish between hunger. Impulsive snacking also appears in our lives when we are under stress. When we do not have time to stop, think, catch our breath and listen to ourselves.

This is a typical state of a person working in a team: snacking on the go, at the desk, between meetings, in terrible deadlines. Often our snacks are convenient foods that do not need to be cleaned or washed. They are good with tea and coffee, on the run, in passing. But you can spend five to ten minutes, put a jar of ready-made hummus on the common table, chop seasonal vegetables and make such a snack the new norm.

How to reduce food cravings?

1. Take a closer look at your schedule and evaluate whether it has time for proper sleep and menu planning? Is physical activity enough? Indeed, without it, the risk of developing stress, anxiety and depression greatly increases. Include breathing practices in your schedule and move at least minimally during the working day – take a walk, do a warm-up at the workplace.
2. Diversify your diet. Start adding new spices and products to your daily menu, do not limit yourself to the standard set of dishes. Try cooking or ordering unusual dishes and combinations for lunch tomorrow – a Middle Eastern stew with vegetables or a curry with chickpeas. Do not be afraid that you will not be able to finish a portion of a new dish because of the unusual taste. It is very important for us to get emotions and new impressions from food, and not to cope with current emotions with food.
3. If you have children, help them build a healthy relationship with food. It is important to introduce a variety of complementary foods from an early age and give them the opportunity to choose and try different foods on their own. And even allowed to play with food. You can read more in the book First Soup, Then Dessert, where I talk in detail about the nutrition of children of different ages, including teenagers, about how to develop a child’s skills to understand food, choose healthy snacks in the store.

There is nothing wrong with including snacks in your diet, but it is worth remembering that a balanced snack is not only one product, cheese or nuts. It would be nice to add sliced ​​uXNUMXbuXNUMXbvegetables, a slice of grain bread, seasonal fruit to it.