SIO406: How Science Made Food Too Addictive

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:16 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only this is episode 406. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. And we got another fun one because today we're talking to Dr. Don Ferriello about about how food corporations have really dialed in that chemical process to make stuff as fucking addictive as possible for us. It's a huge problem, the scientific information there as how that actually works, a little bit of the history and all of that.

And it's a fascinating discussion, let's find out why sugar is basically cocaine for us. So really looking forward to that. As always, before we get there, please go to patreon.com/seriouspod and support the the show if you'd like to avoid the auto ad you're about to hear, and also we had our hangout, uh, just today, boy, that was so much fun, played a lot of code names again, um, that out next month for those top two Patreon tiers, and the, can reveal this, the Seriously Awful Movies number four is not a movie but it's an episode of House.

That's right, I was forced to watch the first fucking episode of House I've ever watched, not a fan, did not like that, but we watched it with a doctor and that was a lot of fun. So that episode, that Seriously Awful Movies bonus for November will be over to you within a few days here when we can get it edited. But that was so much fun, I can't wait for you to hear it. So all good reasons to be on patreon.com/seriouspod. And again, reminder, not the least of which is avoiding these stupid auto ads, which you're going to hear right now, or not if you're a patron. Welcome to the show, how are you doing today?

0:02:02 Dawn: Great. Thanks, Thomas.

0:02:04 Thomas: Ooh, I am so excited for this one. This is one where we saw the pitch and we're like, yes, I want to know more about this. We're going to talk about food. We'll We're going to talk about sugar. But we do that, why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself and how you got into this?

0:02:17 Dawn: My name is Dr. Dawn Ferriello. I am a lecturer at Fordham University and I teach in the biology department. My background is actually nothing to do with food. Yeah, My original background and what I got all of my work and my research work in is microbial ecologist.

0:02:30 Thomas: Oh, actually never even eaten food. It's going to be a challenge. Wow. Did this come up then? How

0:02:39 Dawn: Know that that's the, yeah, I was a microbical ecologist, I I've always been super, super interested in food, where the quote came from. I would have to look it up. I have it in my notes somewhere. But food and eating food is a very intimate experience. And when you first hear the word intimate in food, you're like, no, no. That's not the right word. But then when you think about it, you are like, oh, I'm to put in my body every single day, multiple times a day.

And sometimes we do it without thinking, but it's still a very intimate thing, right? You're choosing those things. And so everybody really has opinions on them. And I think that that's how I got started is years ago. I just started picking up and reading about food constantly, constantly absorbing material and like even when I was doing my own PhD research. And at Fordham, were looking for some interdisciplinary classes, some other classes in different fields than that.

They kind of like put out a random call for course. And I proposed a course about food systems. It's actually an interdisciplinary, I got an economist on it, so we teach the ecology and economics of food. And I've gotten deeper and deeper into it. And, it's a lot of self-taught stuff. But having worked with my co-instructor for a long time now, field, his working field is food and food systems.

And so that, you know, the knowledge that I've gained over a long period of time has really been at a level that can be taken seriously. You know, this course was selected and it's been really well received and we do a lot of outreach and we teach a lot of things of social justice, economic sustainability, social sustainability, environmental sustainability and food systems.

And I've realized that my knowledge and all the background work that I've done has really allowed me to really pass this material on, even though I didn't do my direct research in it. And that's kind of how I just got into it. It's just like, I was really passionate about what I eat, started out with, you know, I would say early 2000s and stuff, was like a lot of books, investigative journalism about a lot these kind of things in the food systems.

It stayed steady, but it's always been minor. I just really picked it up then. And then I continue to read not just investigative journalism articles and books, but also I get into the the scientific literature, and I read some of these journals for, I know it sounds horrible, but for fun. And really has just expanded my knowledge a lot.

0:05:05 Thomas: Today, I think we're going to talk specifically about sugar, right?

0:05:08 Dawn: Yeah, I wanted to talk about sugar and really about how sugar has changed how the average consumer eats in ways that they're probably not aware of and mostly not for the better. To kind of do the background before, need to give you two core concepts. I need you to give the two major roles that you need to understand to understand how marketing has weaponized sugar. And that's the fuel and the of flavor, right? Two components of sugar that I think are really important to understand how it's been weaponized against us. So the fuel is a little bit biology heavy, but I'll try to simplify it. When right, you look at sugar, it's one of the four major macromolecules of life, one of the four major components to all cellular life, right, the the four major, in a balanced breakfast, you're not completely wrong, right? You probably would know them if I say them, right. They are polypeptides, which we colloquial call proteins, nucleotides, Which is your DNA, right, then you have lipids, which are fats, and carbohydrates, which are sugars, which is the core of our talk today.

0:06:00 Thomas: And a balanced breakfast. Yeah. I'm just kidding.

0:06:22 Thomas: Right. I was going to ask what the difference between carbs and sugars is.

0:06:26 Dawn: Nothing, it's the same, just two different We like to call it in the biology classroom, carbohydrates, nutritionists, and everybody else calls them sugars. No major difference.

0:06:36 Thomas: And it doesn't matter if we're talking about the high fructose corn syrup or whatever. I mean, is it just pretty much sugars or sugars, carbs or carbs or what? What?

0:06:44 Dawn: Are differences. And could be like another whole thing if you want to talk about them, because they do interact with the body differently. For the purposes of where we're going with that, let's just call sugar sugars. A little bit more into sugars, you know, so all of our food is made up of like these four major macromolecules. There's other things like vitamins and minerals and those sorts of things that aren't the organic components. Sugar is this generally thought of as a carbohydrate rich fuel, comes in the forms of C, H2O, and multiples of that. Right.

A lot of structural variation in which sugar can do, and reason we need to understand that is that sugar is an integral part of making cellular fuel, right? I say fuel, I mean like the stuff that you make energy with, so you come to biology class and you're learning about how your body turns food into fuel through cellular respiration, you generally start start with taking a molecule of glucose, and then you move it through glycolysis, the pyruvic shuttle, the citric acid cycle, and the electron, right?

You learn that. But you always start with glucose, which is my point, is that sugar is the high point, right, you get a lot of energy from sugar, it's a really rich fuel source for our diets.

0:06:47 Thomas: Okay. Sure. Sounds good.

0:08:02 Thomas: It's what plants crave.

0:08:03 Dawn: What we crave, and And that's where we're going with this, right? So we all need fuel, right, like if we don't eat, we feel down, right. Fuel is essential for everything that we do. Just existing requires a certain amount of fuel, right, but breathing, moving, just thinking, you need fuel.

0:08:04 Thomas: It's, yeah.

0:08:16 Thomas: Yeah. Tell me about it. I know. I think about that. Cause like I have days where I'm just like, you working my brain all day and that's it. Like I really, when I'm, you Know, behind I'm recording, I'm editing, I'm doing all this stuff, researching. And I realized I haven't moved all day, but my brain, I just feel like there's smoke coming out of my ears. And always wonder like, how much energy is that? You know, like how much energy is your brain just use just cooking? I got it. We have to, our, our computer's got to be plugged in. It's got a fan going. It'S got, you know, and that's just, computer's not working out. ItS just thinking, you know? So, Ooh,

0:08:23 Dawn: Right, a side note here, I even planned potentially for this side note here, right like so our brains actually require more fuel than any of the rest of our body. Generally about one in every two bites of food that you eat is used to fuel your brain.

0:09:05 Thomas: Nice. But we only use 10% of our brain. So imagine if we use No, I'm just kidding.

0:09:11 Dawn: I think you did an essay on that myth. I'm pretty sure we did.

0:09:12 Thomas: Imagine how much food we'd have to eat if we use the whole thing.

0:09:17 Dawn: With really cerebral jobs that are doing things that require massive amounts of brain they actually burn greater amounts of energy. They've done some really cool studies with grandmaster chess players, and tournaments for them at those really high levels, they can burn 6,000 calories a day just playing chess. They can lose 10 to 12 pounds over the course of a 10-day tournament.

0:09:35 Thomas: Wow. Crazy. Really? Wow. I never would have thought that because I just feel like, ah, I don't get enough exercise all the time. But yeah, okay. Maybe, I mean, I guess maybe it could be this intense level. I don'T know what qualifies as that.

0:09:47 Dawn: A chess player? Yeah. And it's really interesting because there's like a whole side game in like master chess players finding the perfect body positions. To exert as little physical energy so that all of their energy is going to their brains.

0:09:59 Thomas: Yeah. If I did chess like that, it would be even worse. Cause I feel like when I'm trying to play chess, it's even harder for me. I'm like, ah, I'm kind of trying to think of like three moves and that's impossible. So I wonder, does that use more energy or not? I don'T know.

0:10:18 Dawn: I feel like a lot of these master chess players are probably on a whole different level than me or you personally.

0:10:23 Thomas: Yeah. Well, but that's what I mean though. But I wonder how where's the calorie expenditure come in, like if you're developed all these, you intuitions from decades of playing it, is that using more energy or is it like when I go in there and I, you suck, but I'm having to be like, oh, I got to focus so hard to even like, you even see a couple moves ahead. I wonder which would be like more strenuous, kind of interesting.

0:10:47 Dawn: They're probably doing thousands of more calculations in their head than we would be able to do. Every move, they're seeing dozens variations of that move almost instantaneously.

0:10:58 Thomas: So you think those, that intuitive thing they've built does still up all that energy. That makes sense, but it's just that like it's easier for them to do a given thing, probably. If we're both like, "Find this mate in three," and they're like, "Fucking easy," but I'm like, "I'm gonna struggle real hard." You know what I mean? I guess that's what I'm saying, like, what I wonder which takes more energy, you know?

0:11:20 Dawn: And also you're looking at energy per time, unit of time there, I'm sure. Don't know that one. I'd have to do some research.

0:11:22 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Anyway. Different topic, but that was just uh, yeah, just something to think about.

0:11:28 Dawn: So your brain uses a lot of fuel, right? And so that means that your brain demands high amounts of fuel very very fuel -rich foods, right? Second part I want to talk about is flavor, right, is generally a combination of two senses, like taste and smell, right. That's a little bit of a a simplification. There are some other things like there's like mouthfeels and textures and temperatures that go into flavor, but like simplifying it a little bit, you major things for flavor is the picking up of chemicals, right? It's sensing chemicals in your taste. Taste is using chemoreceptors, chemical receptors to pick up taste. The the nose is picking up smell, the olfactory senses are picking up chemicals in the air, right? Thing here is that, that sugar is one of the major ways we taste and Flavor has a huge component of sugar in it.

Sugar is a chemical in which your body senses or picks up via chemical stimuli. So we're making that jump from sugar not just being a carbon backbone of a macromolecule, but it's also a chemical, right? Chemical that your body picks up, right, this is where the fun kind of begins, right. So we've made this connection that sugar is a chemical. The thing about the nervous system is when you pick up the stimulus, that stimuli still has to be processed, right!

So the chemical receptors receive that the sugar or molecule has been applied to the tongue or picked up by the nose, right? The stimuli is is then sent to the brain, the action potential is sent to the brain. The processing is going to be done by the brain but brain processes eating is generally in two ways. Either is this this thing harmful or is it helpful? The overarching

0:11:52 Thomas: Kool -Aid powder. Yeah, other stuff.

0:13:12 Thomas: Hmm.

0:13:13 Dawn: Kind of idea. Do you want to eat more of it or should you not eat more of it? The

0:13:16 Thomas: Yes. Answer is yes. Sorry. I don't even know what I ate. I've wanted more of it.

0:13:21 Dawn: Way that the sugar is responded is one, it's helpful because we've already identified it as a fuel and your brain craves fuel. Doesn't just process it as helpful, it processes it as an pleasure -reward pathway. If pleasure and reward pathways seem like a familiar term you might have heard in the use of addiction or those sorts of things. It's the same type of pathway.

0:13:35 Thomas: Yeah.

0:13:45 Thomas: Makes sense to me.

0:13:46 Dawn: Upon consuming sugar in the brain with a pleasure sense, right? Some studies indicate that these -reward pathways for sugar are similar to those of certain addiction things like alcohol, or specifically, they've done studies comparing sugar and cocaine, right? Studies even suggest that sugar isn't only more addictive than significantly, cocaine but they're eight significantly times more addictive. Than cocaine, right?

0:14:13 Thomas: I know I had a cocaine powder donut yesterday. Wasn't even as addicted as the sugar one. It's crazy. Absolutely nuts.

0:14:21 Dawn: So can see that sugar, it's going to be processed in the brain in the same reward -pleasure pathways as that of other addictive substances. And that's one of the ways that sugar is really unique, right. Just kind of defining addiction here, right, addiction is that measure of a person seeking or craving a pleasurable reward stimuli, like that's the simplified definition of that. We can say these kind of grand things. Sugar is eight times more addictive than cocaine, but there's a lot of subjective information. Like that study was done with laboratory conditions in mice that showed that it

0:14:33 Thomas: Sure. Yeah I want to know how much cocaine the doctors are doing. You know know, like the scientists, are they like, I feel seven, eight times more addicted right now. Or it's mice. Okay. Nevermind. Always mice. You, those mice live a hell of a life. They There's get so many interesting experiences and it's a real roulette wheel too. It's like, are you going to be doing cocaine and like having sex or something? Or are we just like, like, you know, giving you cancer or something. That's poor mice. It's a, you know, yeah.

0:15:25 Dawn: Then killing you immediately to do histological studies. Yeah.

0:15:28 Thomas: Yep. It really must be. That the Hunger Games. They are just waiting for their announcement. Like, nope, you are getting cocaine today. Yes!

0:15:37 Dawn: It is subjective, right. Studies The that did that were with mice. And it's difficult to compare mice to humans in a lot of ways. Also, the pleasure reward pathway of the sugar is slightly different than the pleasure reward pathway we identified for cocaine.

0:15:52 Thomas: Was going to ask, kind of on that topic though. Sugar obviously can easily, Just you relate to like, yeah, that is addictive. But I mean, I know people are also quite fond of something like a fatty steak or whatever. You know, those those other chemicals you talked about, are they using different reward pathways or like just not as intense somehow? Or like what, makes it, I mean, we all love a lot of different food. What makes sugar kind of more addictive than, you protein, other things we enjoy, but just maybe not at that same level.

0:16:22 Dawn: Bliss point, which we're getting to in a second, does include fats. So it's a ratio of fat, sugar, and salts that makes makes you crave that food, right?

0:16:24 Thomas: Ah, I'm already, yeah, that just saying fat, fat, sugar, and salt, I'm in. I'm already, it sounds delicious.

0:16:39 Dawn: So the bliss point does include fats. The reason that we're focusing on sugar is the sugar pathway uses that reward pleasure way, very similar to cocaine, whereas the fat and salt isn't the same, right.

0:16:48 Thomas: More like heroin. No. Oh, okay. Sorry. It's a different.

0:16:56 Thomas: These mice are like high, out of their minds. They're like, oh, I think it's more like this one. This is the one. Yeah. This pathway.

0:17:02 Dawn: You did make a really great point that that people are individuals with different neurobiological differences and different psychological experiences that modulate reward, pleasure for each of us, in ways that we have slightly different things that we do or don't like, or slightly different levels that we could or could not become addicted on, right?

Of side along about sugars and being addictive, it's important to note that, is so up for debate as to how addictive sugar actually is or much individuals can become addicted to eating sugar or how much pleasure they get from eating sugar. But what isn't really up for a debate is that sugar is positively received by the brain, and it's processed via pleasure -reward pathways, so that kind of gives you the idea that sugar is a major player in this pleasure - reward system.

Other thing about sugar is pleasure and reward, part part of the, is that generally you start to hit like a plateau of how much pleasure you get from eating the same amount or doing the same amounts of a substance, right? And generally it starts to, you need more to receive the same reward, right. This has to come down to the electrical and chemical signals of the pleasure reward system. So dopamine being the major transmitter that helps to create pleasurable outcomes for somebody. You do other addictive substances, the addictive substances generally, you start to get less dopamine release for the same amount. So people start to overcome that by doing more, right? Thing

0:18:06 Thomas: Right. Yeah, Oh

0:18:38 Dawn: About sugar is that plateau doesn't start to go down as fast. So sugar, you will receive the same amount of pleasure for the same dosage for much, much longer than you would with other addictive substances. It still Does, eventually, yeah, go down, right? It doesn't go down at that same ratio, which makes it really interesting because you can still receive a very similar kind of high or similar kind of pleasure reward for much longer on the same amount of sugar. That's really beneficial because that same point can continue to have you crave it, right.

0:18:51 Thomas: Man.

0:19:12 Thomas: Yeah beneficial. Like if we're in the wild, is that good? Cause we just want as much fucking sugar as possible or something.

0:19:19 Dawn: Why this is thought to exist. This leftover sort of pleasure reward for sugar is thought to exist mostly because of evolutionary trends. Pre-industrialization, pre-lots of food, people were looking for energy-rich sources. Food was always in scarcity. So this ability to identify a very energy-rich food source was really essential for our success process evolutionarily, so that we could identify that and consume a lot of it, right? So this is leftover from that fat hoarding, food insecurity kind of period of time for humans, pre we go into a supermarket. So I guess we've come down to the point now, we understand flavor and we understand fuel. So how do you monetize craving? This is where brings it, gets, all of this together, right? Bliss Point was by Howard Moskovitz.

0:19:43 Thomas: Did he invent exactly two Reese's peanut butter cups? Cause that's what I found weirdly like, that's enough. If I have two, I'm like, I want more. I started eating a third. I'm Like, Oh man, I think it was just those two. Like you did. It's a really, that's the bliss point for me. Is that anything like it?

0:20:27 Dawn: Not exactly the Bliss Point. So the bliss point, it with sugar and then it also adds in some fats and salts, but it's the ratio of sugar to fat to salt that is meant to to stimulate that pleasure reward center to incentivize mindless eating, right? It's the exact ratio. It's the minimum amount of additive products, right, so you're putting in the minimum to generate the maximum amount of dopamine, right. If you go over that, remember, we stated that too much you don't necessarily get the same high, right? So you want to minimize what you input to maximize craving, and also is meant to also just good enough to make you want more but not so good that you remember it and you get Satiation And

0:21:14 Thomas: Oh, like satiate. Yeah. I was just going going to say, okay, gotcha. So your brain still thinks like, oh, I did not eat enough chips. And then you eat 400 more chips and you know, like someone ate all my chips.

0:21:22 Dawn: That's why you can get to the end of a bag of chips, not even realize it. And then you want more chips and you go get a second bag, Because right? You're not satiated, but you have now eaten that whole bag of ships.

0:21:29 Thomas: Yeah. A lot of chips. Yes.

0:21:36 Dawn: And by causing people to do mindless eating, by incentivizing people with this bliss this point, to continue to eat, you make a bigger profit because Uses the evolutionary process of craving sugar, but it also overrids the natural process of satiation. And this was developed by, again, Howard Moskovitz, when generated one of the most famous soda flavors of vanilla Dr. Pepper. So he was hired by the Dr. Pepper company to formulate the flavor that would create lot of drive for a product, right? Because products are out there competing with thousands of other products. So you want your product to be as craveable as possible. So he was actually the one that coined and generated the bliss point, and in the generation of the vanilla Dr. Pepper flavor, they went through 61 different formulations over 4 000 testing Well, they probably did most of it with humans, right? So that by the time that that product is actually made and put on the shelves, it created an absolutely addictive, desirable product. And I can say, like, Dr. Pepper is the only soda that I occasionally drink because every once in a while, let's

0:21:46 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:33 Thomas: So many mice too. Yeah, I love Dr. Pepper. I don't, yeah, I don't drink soda, but it is my favorite diet. It. I love Diet Dr. Pepper. I guess that's a whole separate podcast.

0:22:57 Dawn: Not talk about aspartame. Oh my gosh. If you ever want to talk about the horrors of aspartate, I can

0:22:59 Thomas: Yeah. Wonders of aspartame. The greatest, fantastic, amazing.

0:23:04 Dawn: No, it's not wonderful. It is one of the worst things that is on the market. Absolutely. I think I could convince you on that if you ever have time. Don't drink anything diet. Aspartame actually gives me massive, massive migraines.

0:23:09 Thomas: Oh, okay. Maybe. That makes it easy then.

0:23:20 Dawn: Almost instantaneous too. Companies have gotten so good that generally don't have to do as much of that pre -work now. They generally know the ratios that are really going to create very craveable products. Now that doesn't mean, again, going back that people aren't different, that there aren't some modulations to those sorts of of things. Um, you've ever gone to like those stores where they're like, "Oh, look at these exotic, uh, foods," right? They have foods from like Japan or foods from other countries or or whatever. That's because they've found that the bliss points also tend to have cultural differences, right? So yeah, South America, Central America, Latinos tend to like things with higher salt contents. Their bliss point includes a higher amount of salt. Americans tend to have a higher salt and sugar ratio than European and North American. Children have sugar bliss points that are astronomical

0:23:31 Thomas: Yeah, interesting.

0:24:16 Thomas: Yeah

0:24:16 Dawn: Compared.

0:24:17 Thomas: Every parent knows that. Yeah, yeah.

0:24:20 Dawn: Just had Halloween, right? Like only little while ago. I mean, yeah, Oh my gosh. Bliss Point has fundamentally increased profits, Knowing right? This. And it wouldn't be so bad to a certain extent if this was only in things like candy, like we talked about, right. They've used the Bliss Point in basically any major processed food. From bread, pasta sauces, yogurts, salad dressings, any processed product you can imagine now utilizes this fundamental bliss point ratio to incentivize you to eat more. That's where the weaponization is coming into to play, right? Things that don't need added sugar are getting extra sugar. Things that don't require added salt are getting Extra Salt. Things that don t require added fats are getting added fats. This is causing my over -mindless consumption, right. -consumption is incredibly problematic, right, leads to massive amounts of health problems.

0:24:21 Thomas: Yeah. Sure.

0:25:27 Dawn: Is hitting our country even harder. Obesity is directly linked to things like diabetes, end -stage renal disease, and it has massive costs on the public health systems. The people that are eating that costs are in our taxes to help people with their health care. And just directly being given to us on top of the profits that are being taken by these big billion -dollar companies. So idea of the bliss point is now consistently applied to foods that it really shouldn't be applied to. Even the greater problem in understanding this is that this wasn't a side effect of those billion -dollar companies, right?

Was the direct result of them understanding the science, right? Would be interesting if the bliss point was created before we understood how sugar interacted with the brain, but it was actually done afterwards. It was done by many of these large food companies getting together and looking for a way to to increase profits. And even at these major corporate events, hence, they stated that their interest wasn't in public health. Their interest or responsibility was to the shareholder and to the profits. Knowingly, this science and hired Howard in order to generate these profits.

They have taken our biological needs and them into profits. Habits, and that's the major problem with it, right? And and I think the other major weapon that they utilize is that they will incentivize and state that food is a personal choice, right? You can personally

0:26:13 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:27:18 Dawn: Choose to eat or to not eat, but think that that just tries to take all of their responsibility out of the actions that they took.

0:27:28 Thomas: I mean, I make this this point all the time with climate change, it's the same thing. It's like, I think that obesity is a problem, but obviously shaming, already have plenty of fat shaming in this society, like we don't need any more of that. Like, that's, if that worked then there would be no fat people. Like, that obviously doesn't work, it just makes everyone's life worse. Work, I think that it, it's same kind of thing where it's like these companies that make money off of this, um, think it's in their best interest to push that personal responsibility narrative. Really, it's not. I, I think that's the same thing. Do you see that comparison is valid where it's like the food system is a problem? The way this food is made is a problema. And putting that all on the individual consumer to like do a better job of not eating so much of this amazing, addictive, perfectly chemically created food. I feel like that's just kicking ourselves in our own groins. Why are we doing that?

0:28:18 Dawn: That's 100% correct. I can make direct comparisons to what food companies are doing compared to what tobacco companies were doing 50, 100 years ago, right? Were saying that it wasn't their responsibility, responsibility, etc, etc, and and the marketing for a lot of these companies, these of ultra processed foods is really really similar to the playbooks that tobacco companies were using. They target children for very very sugary things like cereals. Cereal is basically, in most cases it's like basically straight lining sugar, um, um, your of your flavored yogurths can have more sugar than a single helping of like a vanilla ice cream, right?

0:28:26 Thomas: Mm, right. Mm-hmm. It's just sugar yeah what really, oh my gosh, that's a wow, all I'm gonna have a cup of ice cream for breakfast then, I guess, might as well, right.

0:29:04 Dawn: Yeah. Not only have they put additional sugar in products that don't need it, but they've also then turn around and market it as healthy, right? Or they, they'll do is they'll reduce maybe the amount of sugar. And then what they do is they'll add in a little extra fat. So they just kind of tweak that ratio, right? And then they market it as less sugar or they do things like you've already kind of mentioned, oh, we're going to use a zero calorie sweetener, right. There's The innate problems with zero calorie straighteners, all of them.

And that what they doing is they just teach our body that high sugar contents don't actually give us energy. So it actually makes you increase the amount of sweetness that you consume. That actually has increased their profits. They don't mind generating low calorie options or sugar free options because all that does is make you more likely to not be satiated and more likely to eat other ultra processed foods because you already partake of some of them. A major health problem. They knew about this and then they utilized it to generate a bliss point, to generate greater amounts of products.

And because people's tastes change over time, because they are making people in general get exposed to sugar for long periods of time, and then the dopamine levels and the amount of pleasure you receive goes down. If you've ever seen food products that are reformulated or new and improved, what they've done is they've generally tweaked to that ratio, that bliss point ratio, so that you're going to still get the same pleasure high instead letting you fall down.

0:29:49 Thomas: No

0:30:44 Dawn: Fall

0:30:44 Thomas: I always thought that meant they did absolutely nothing but just put a new thing. Oh, I

0:30:49 Dawn: Is for me, it is, it is that, right? That is what they are doing, and it's really hard to get away from those products. Like, children, I think education and having this out there, being aware of it is the number one way you can kind of stay away from it. But you're so inundated constantly by marketing of these sugary foods, these sugory cereals, every time you walk into a supermarket, so constantly inundrated with it. And even if you decide, hey, I'm going to make this completely my choice, there are people out there that, one, highly sugarized processed foods are often subsidized because a lot of them have corn in them.

0:31:28 Thomas: Wish we could get rid of that shit, god, why are we still subsidizing the worst things, like, like oil and all this shit. Drives me nuts. At bunch of people who are like, "Free market, free market." It's not free. That's the, doing the opposite of that. It's weird.

0:31:41 Dawn: Oh, I agree. I completely agree. I think the subsidizing of corn is everything Everything you eat has corn or corn. Point. Even if you decide, hey, I'm only going to eat fresh fruits and veggies, then you have people that are in food deserts that cannot acquire them, or you go to the local supermarket and basically they have none of that. And the I think that that was the greatest weapon of all, is that they've used this science and then they've turned around and say, well, it's your fault. Are healthy. It's your responsibility, but they give you no other options. You're in a lose -lose situation.

0:32:01 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:12 Thomas: Well, and I, Lydia and I do this constantly where a, it takes so much more time to figure that fucking shit out. You know, it's like, if we want to eat healthy, we have to invest an entire, you know, like day of planning into it. And whereas if you want to just eat something fast, it's just there, you know, it's all there and it's the worst. But also I feel like it's, maybe know, let me know if this is wrong, but I just feel like It's also warped our brain to where I just, when I look at the healthy foods, I just, my brain's like, Hmm, that's nothing. That's that's like it just, I don't want them as much and

0:32:46 Dawn: That's 100% right, The right? Goal is that that food item gives you the most pleasure. And anything that doesn't have that bliss point is not going to give you the same level of pleasure.

0:32:55 Thomas: It trains your brain. Right. I mean, it kind of like over time, I feel like is is that true? Like it just it feels like if we're constantly learning that lesson, I feel like it's, you know, going to have an effect long-term, right?

0:33:06 Dawn: 100%. Long-term, people's bliss points are including more and more sugar. That is why they constantly are reformulating. And this is increasing to more more and more people consuming higher amounts of sugar. The recommended daily sugar value is somewhere around 5% of your daily intake should be additional sugars. And that's one of the things that's really hard if you do read nutritional labels to look at.

0:33:29 Thomas: The added sugars.

0:33:31 Dawn: Foods innately have lots of sugar, right? General, are classified, at least in the grocery grocery store, more as their sugar content or sweetness, whereas vegetables are generally less sugary, at classified in the supermarkets. That's not actually biological. But have a certain amount of sugars. When we're talking about added sugars, you're not really supposed to exceed about 5% of your daily intake. A lot of labels are misleading. It's really hard if you're eating something that might have just innate sugars versus added sugars. Telling right? Those things apart can be difficult, Just a single soda could put you over what your sugar limit is supposed to be in a day. There's so many health problems that go along with that. Again, obesity, they've shown direct links between the increase and rise of sugary sodas and the increasing abundance of people that are classified as obese, and also in our spending, our health spending. So all of these links Are there. And what it really comes down to is, is these marketing companies have generally become so dependent on this bliss point now that, until they're not, going to be incentivized to move away from it.

0:34:26 Thomas: Yeah, right.

0:34:39 Thomas: Yeah it always wondered about the added sugar thing. I mean, for some reason, chemically, does that matter? Like if you were to eat five grams of added sugar versus five grams or just sugar, that's in like a, I don't know, whatever strawberry or something. Is there, there a reason your body processes it it differently? Or is it just sugar is sugar?

0:34:57 Dawn: Yes and no, I right? Did state that there there are differences between sugars, Right. Way that sugars overarchingly are in the brain are the same, but some sugars are digested differently and also have different hormonal responses, right? So one of the major reasons why high fructose corn syrup is so bad for you is that high frructose corn syrups still sets off the same reward pattern in the brain of addiction and pleasure, right? High fructose corn syrup, when it gets down into the stomach, for some reason, it doesn't stimulate the release of certain satiation hormones the way that more complex sugars do, right? Because sugars, again, come in like lots of variations of the CH2O, they come in a lot of structural variations, and complex sugars are broken down differently than simple sugars. So there's a lot of different ways in that kind of aspect of satiation versus sorts of things, but the overarching, the way we process sugars and the release of dopamine is the same.

0:34:59 Thomas: Yeah, seen the few times I've covered any of this. I feel like there's a massive amount of just, I don't know, heated debate and anger out there. I know there's big fights over whether or not high fructose corn syrup is any better or worse than other sugars. So I feel Like I don't know the answers to those, but I do know that I'm sure either way we'll get a bunch of really angry comments. So just putting that out there.

0:36:23 Dawn: That's okay. I mean, and will say that when I teach these sorts of things to my students, the very first thing that I lead off with and the very last thing that I end with is, is I'm not here to tell you how to eat. I don't think that that's a reasonable way to instruct people, right? Because going back to one of my first comments, food is very, very intimate. So everybody has an opinion and everybody has a very visceral reaction if you tell them they can or cannot eat something. I'm sure you've gone through that. And I think you've spoken a little bit about that when you talked about becoming vegetarian and how people, people tell you what how you should or should not approach that with your children, right? Everybody has an opinion.

0:37:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:37:06 Dawn: And don't I think that we should tell people like, well, just stop eating all ultra processed foods and you're going to be fine. I think that that's incredibly problematic. We have changed society in such a way that most people have two two parents working, right? Right. And the idea that a parent can cook every single meal all the time is a fallacy. That's just not possible. And even somebody like me who tries to cook most of the meals, I can't control what my children eat when they go to school.

0:37:38 Dawn: I think that it's more about educating. Are the innate problems. Right. These Are the ways that they are making it so that you want to eat. And then, you know, read some nutritional labels, choose what you do and don't have in the house if possible. Make a little bit of better choices. And it doesn't take one person doing every single thing right. It takes everybody doing a littlebit, making a small change, That's right? Going to be what makes you healthier, right, just like I don't have the time to tell to actually work out like you're supposed to do 30 minutes every day. Like that's just not functionally possible, right. Right. So I think at the same time, I can't tell everybody like, oh, just stop eating all ultra processed foods. But you can try to make some healthier choices. Right. You read nutrition labels, try to makes sure that added sugar is way at the bottom. Right? If it's one of the top ones, absolutely not. Try to look for salts and fats as added. Try and make sure those are at the if you can.

0:37:22 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I know.

0:38:35 Thomas: I literally didn't know the bottom and the top meant anything. So they go in order of like how much there is kind of. Oh. News to me.

0:38:41 Dawn: Yes. Know, but like there's going to be certain things you're not not willing to give up. I mean, I could not take Oreos away from my children. And I will say that Oreos are not healthy. They are highly over processed food. But if I take OreOS away from my children, there would be a riot in this house, right?

0:38:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You do have to consider the political concerns with choices like that. There may be a coup. Yeah.

0:39:04 Dawn: I'm glad you understand. I'm glad you understood. But, it's one of those things like, so me teaching this class, I don't make all the right decisions, even though I know they're right too. But I try to just incorporate small changes when I can. And I go through ebbs and flows of some the year, particularly when there's lots of farmers markets, I'm a big proponent of farmers markets. And then other times in the winter, I're out out there buying more ultra processed foods. And that's just the flow of things, right? I think making people aware and not allowing these companies to hide how using our body's mechanisms against us is the first step step in a little bit healthier. I

0:39:39 Thomas: Yeah. I And I think that while I'm sure there's a lot of little disagreements around the edges that I'm, you know, I'm not qualified to answer. I just do, I just see so like you Know, even when it's like a tangential issue, I see a lot of engagement and anger over, over these things. So I'm like, you know, it's Like whether or not the sugars thing, the processed foods thing, the blah, blah, blah. Let's set all that side for a moment.

Any minor disagreements anyone may may have there. I think we can all disagree with your, what I take to be your, probably your biggest message, which is the capitalism is doing it. You know, like these companies are profiting off of this. I feel like we pretty much all agree on that. And there's really only one way to solve that. It's not through personal choice and bootstrapping. That just doesn't, that's not going to work. It just doesn'T. It didn't work with, you know, cigarettes.

It doesn't work It doesn't work with anything like need a public health campaign and we need, you probably and regulation or something to change this. And so I feel like if we, you do what we can to dial down the anger against each other, and you Now, maybe try to focus that into collective action. That's I guess that's all I'm trying to say. What do you think?

0:40:53 Dawn: Agree. And I also want to point out, I think that what Michelle Obama did for student lunches and bringing some attention to some of these problems is massive. Work that she did was incredible. People been aware about how how bad really nutrition was, particularly in school lunches prior to her work. And she really made some really drastic, very healthy changes. I'm not saying it's perfect. I'm not here to do that. But I think, you are people that do make a difference and can make differences by knowledge, right? And it was really her work, I've read her or listen to her audio book about her life and, you why she chose the learning more about nutrition and the lunch campaigns, the student lunch campaigns is amazing. And she made some really amazing work in making food healthier and more nutritious. Not think that, you Now, that's what you're saying, we you need some big solutions. And she tackled one, right? She tackled one small part of a big solution. If we could keep making big solution changes like that, then we could do it all at once. But it's got to come in little packages.

0:41:03 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah, of course. -Hmm. Yep.

0:42:03 Dawn: The marketing campaign now is pointing being the finger at us. "Well, it's your choice to put that food in you." And it's like, like, yeah, but you formulated in such a way that I can't put it down or I or you've made it so cheap that I don't have other options.

0:42:13 Thomas: Yeah. Barely available. Yeah. Exactly. All right. Well, I think that's a good place to leave it. I think there's obviously so much more we can talk about. Going to keep an eye on, you know, questions and points and stuff from people, because like I said, I think this is an issue a lot of people are passionate about. And who knows, maybe we can do a follow up. What do you think?

0:42:33 Dawn: Would love to, we, we touched on a couple of things in here that I could already see if people are interested in fake sugars, um, aspartame, I would love, I can talk to you incessantly about how much I hate aspartame um or corn or I mean anything um

0:42:47 Thomas: Yeah, fuck corn. God, so sick of big corn. For

0:42:54 Dawn: An idea that we could do like a different food system a month or a different thing because I think that food is one thing that everyone can relate to is

0:43:01 Thomas: Sure. Oh, is there anything you want to shout out while you're here?

0:43:05 Dawn: It okay if I make a quick shout out to my husband who is a huge fangirl of yours so Hi, Ben, um, Benjamin Ferriello. I got on SIO, maybe you can too. Thank

0:43:11 Thomas: Of course. You've made the small time. No, that's excellent. Thanks so much. Don Ferriello, thank you so much, hope to hear from you again, and thanks for your time, and see you all next time.