Is it the FAT that is so addicting?

[roundcoconut]

I had never heard that term, "a greasy tooth", but it is funny and apt.

I do notice that avocados have exploded in popularity over the last ten years. Does everyone remember 20 years ago, when no one in mainstream America (by which I mean, like, the northeast or something) bought avocados, and no restaurants had them as an add-on option?

And now they are available at Subway, and at Applebee's and just EVERYWHERE. Avocados are more available than ever, and boy are Americans gobbling them. People really don't hesitate to say that they want a burger with cheese, bacon, and avocado. So -- let me get this straight -- fat, topped with fat, fat and fat? Good Jesus. Come and save us!

I can't imagine fat being as exciting as flour products, but I guess if fatty foods were my first "hit" in the world of refined and extracted food-concoctions, then maybe I would've turned out differently.

My mother, also, likes fat with a passion, and used to make up a lemon-pepper butter, that used to get eaten in globs, on each forkful of chicken. It's amazing I turned out to have a clue at all!

[roundcoconut]

PS -- re the idea that every human has a "food" addiction, it is not really a term that is meant literally. It is the highly refined foods that ensnare humans, to eat them at massive overdose levels, to their ultimate destruction, just like with drugs and alcohol.

The folks who are massively food addicted and are beset by health issues, but feel they cannot give up their trigger foods, and we are not talking about lentils or carrot sticks that created these problems -- it is the fat, flour, sugar and salt that are pumped into processed foods at high levels -- that are the trigger foods that have caused addiction behaviors in many Americans.

It is really uncanny the way a food addicted population rationalizes, denies, self-destructs, "manages" their addiction, "hides" the extent of their problem, and feels desperate to and yet powerless to overcome their addiction.

Just my understanding of how the term seems to be used!

[vgpedlr]

I do notice that avocados have exploded in popularity over the last ten years. Does everyone remember 20 years ago, when no one in mainstream America (by which I mean, like, the northeast or something) bought avocados, and no restaurants had them as an add-on option?

And now they are available at Subway, and at Applebee's and just EVERYWHERE. Avocados are more available than ever, and boy are Americans gobbling them. People really don't hesitate to say that they want a burger with cheese, bacon, and avocado. So -- let me get this straight -- fat, topped with fat, fat and fat? Good Jesus. Come and save us!

Funny, but even here in CA, where avocados are considered a basic food group, they are now much more available than before. They used to have short seasons in the market, now they're year round. It's funny that as a kid I did not understand the appeal. While everyone raved how they were "rich and creamy" to me they were greasy and gross.

Well, that changed! Now I love them, though they're easy to avoid. I don't dream about them like I do cheese!

[Dougalling]

If you add oil (100% vegetable fat) to food, you will eat a lot more of it than without adding oil to it.
If you add sugar to food, you will eat a lot more of it than without adding sugar.
Oil and sugar excites the brain. The brain says more more more and you stop eating when your stomach says no more, no more !

[OneLeggedPig]

I think it's more the calorie-density than the fat as such, personally.

[vgpedlr]

Agree with the idea that is a combination of SOS that is powerful. Alone, sugar, fat, or salt don't do much. Despite people complaining about a sweet tooth, I have never seen anyone sit down to a bowl of sugar with a spoon. Or drink a glass of olive oil. (Though Ihave heard of it in the Med.)

The sweet foods people really love for candy or dessert combine sugar and fat. The candies that don't have fat are not nearly as popular. I determined this scientifically by examining Halloween loot

[patty]

The fat stores the toxins.. I think that is what is alarming. In "How Not to Die", Dr. Greger shares when a mother is breast feeding her child the toxins that are stored in her body is passed, and those toxins can be stored in the fat within daughter and then when she has her off spring those same toxins can be passed. This can be witnessed with families with alcoholic genes being passed generation after generation. And of course combination of SOS in the immediacy is very addictive.

Aloha, patty

[roundcoconut]

The sweet foods people really love for candy or dessert combine sugar and fat. The candies that don't have fat are not nearly as popular. I determined this scientifically by examining Halloween loot

So true, and YES, anyone who gave out round butterscotch candies for halloween ABSOLLUTELY did not get the oohs and the aahs of someone who gave out mini candy bars (pumped with lardy old fat!).

I've never known someone who gets a starlight mint on their way out of a restaurant and goes hankering for four or five more. But can't say the same about someone who gets a donut in the office kitchen -- they DO want one more, and then another, and then a fourth.

Come to think of it, I don't know much of anyone who gets pumped up when they receive a candy cane. Sure, it's all sugar, but who really cares, unless you're going to swirl it in a fatty, puss-filled cup of hot cocoa?

My random comment of the day: (which is totally off topic, but that's how I am!)

Has anyone noticed how it is a trend for Americans to like eating food designed as "scraps"? I think that's why people like eating "bark" (those flat pieces of chocolate and crunchies that are thrown into a round tin for people to gobble) -- because it's not like eating donuts where your mind registers, "I have now had two donuts" or "I have now had three donuts". Rather, it is like eating the apple peelings when your mom is making an apple pie, where they are all "free" and you don't need to count.

Well, there's my insight into modern humanity. If you're eating stuff designed as "scraps", it kinda doesn't count, because you can't quite count your consumption of it. In the American mind anyways!

[katgirl55]

I had never heard that term, "a greasy tooth", but it is funny and apt.

I do notice that avocados have exploded in popularity over the last ten years. Does everyone remember 20 years ago, when no one in mainstream America (by which I mean, like, the northeast or something) bought avocados, and no restaurants had them as an add-on option?

And now they are available at Subway, and at Applebee's and just EVERYWHERE. Avocados are more available than ever, and boy are Americans gobbling them. People really don't hesitate to say that they want a burger with cheese, bacon, and avocado. So -- let me get this straight -- fat, topped with fat, fat and fat? Good Jesus. Come and save us!

I can't imagine fat being as exciting as flour products, but I guess if fatty foods were my first "hit" in the world of refined and extracted food-concoctions, then maybe I would've turned out differently.

My mother, also, likes fat with a passion, and used to make up a lemon-pepper butter, that used to get eaten in globs, on each forkful of chicken. It's amazing I turned out to have a clue at all!

The bacon, cheese and avocado industry hit the marketing jackpot within the last 10 years. You cannot go to a restaurant or fast food joint now without having some combination of these on the menu.

I think the combination of fat and refined flour/sugar and enough salt is flavoring gold. Imagine a piece of plain bread with no salt (there are some brands like Alvarado Street Bakery that sell it) and no fat on top (such as mayo, butter, nut butter, avocado). It doesn't taste good. Like going from whole to skim milk - then try drinking whole again and it tastes like pure cream. Tastes can adjust but sometimes the change is a really difficult transition.

[vgpedlr]

Imagine a piece of plain bread with no salt (there are some brands like Alvarado Street Bakery that sell it) and no fat on top (such as mayo, butter, nut butter, avocado). It doesn't taste good.

I LOVE that sort of bread, but I'm weird that way. But fresh sourdough is much better.

Funny thing about the "scraps." I will have to watch for that.